Harry Dunn’s parents lose High Court battle with Foreign Office

LONDON: Harry Dunn’s parents have said they are appealing over the High Court ruling that their son’s killer had diplomatic immunity, after taking “strong legal advice”.

Judges accepted the Foreign Office’s position that US suspect Anne Sacoolas “enjoyed immunity from UK criminal jurisdiction” as part of their judgment, which was handed down on Tuesday.

Dunn, 19, was killed when his motorbike crashed into a car being driven on the wrong side of the road by American Anne Sacoolas outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire on August 27 last year.

Sacoolas, whose husband, Jonathan Sacoolas, worked as a technical assistant at the base, left the country a few weeks later after the US said she was entitled to diplomatic immunity.

The 43-year-old was ultimately charged last December with causing death by dangerous driving, but an extradition request was rejected by the US State Department in January – a decision it later described as “final”. Speaking about the family’s next steps, Dunn’s mother, Charlotte Charles, told the PA news agency that she hoped Joe Biden would “show us that the US have morals”.

Mrs Charles, and Mr Dunn’s father, Tim Dunn, claimed the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) wrongly decided that Sacoolas had diplomatic immunity and unlawfully obstructed Northamptonshire Police’s investigation into their son’s death by keeping the force “in the dark”. But, in a High Court judgment delivered on Tuesday, Lord Justice Flaux and Mr Justice Saini said: “Our conclusion is that Mrs Sacoolas enjoyed immunity from UK criminal jurisdiction at the time of Harry’s death.”

The judges also rejected Mrs Charles’ and Mr Dunn’s claim that the FCDO “usurped” the police investigation into their son’s death, finding that officials “sought to assist rather than obstruct Northamptonshire Police in their investigation”.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab

said the judgment “makes clear the Foreign Office acted properly and lawfully throughout”. Asked how she felt after the judgment, Mrs Charles told PA: “Just that it’s another blip. It’s just another hurdle that they put in the way.

“We knew that this was a possibility but we always have a plan B. Our team, our lawyers were very, very confident right from the very beginning of this campaign that she did not have immunity at the time of the crash when she killed Harry.

“They are still as confident as ever with that opinion. We have the Director of Public Prosecutions behind us with that as well. If anything, we are more confident than what we were that she did not have immunity.”