Harry Dunn’s parents are furious over claims the Foreign Office asked police to delay telling them that the US diplomat’s wife accused of killing him had fled Britain.
Northamptonshire Police told the teenager’s family that Anne Sacoolas had left the country ten days after officers were informed.
Harry 19, was killed when his motorbike was involved in a head-on collision with a car allegedly driving on the wrong side of the outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire on August 27.
Police visited Mrs Sacoolas, 42, at her home the next day. Officers were told she had left the country on September 16 – using the diplomatic immunity belonging to her husband Jonathan.
But Harry’s family say they were not informed by police until 10 days later. ITV News reports that the Foreign Office asked the police to delay telling them.
Harry’s mother Charlotte Charles told the broadcaster: ‘It’s disgusting. They’ve got to answer some questions we throw at them haven’t they? Because who made that ridiculous decision?’
She called on Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to answer the family’s questions, adding: ‘He needs to do the right thing as well doesn’t he and own up to why they made that decision.
Harry Dunn’s parents (Tim Dunn and Charlotte Charles, pictured) are furious over claims the Foreign Office asked police to delay telling them that the US diplomat’s wife accused of killing him had fled Britain
Harry Dunn, 19, was killed in August when his motorcycle collided with a car allegedly driven by Anne Sacoolas outside a British air force base in Northamptonshire
‘Why keep us in the dark? Why add more pain?’
Harry’s father Tim added: ‘Dominic Raab said to us when we had that meeting that they and the police were two separate things.’
Also today it was reported that Harry’s parents have accused the government of abandoning them during their visit to the US, where they met President Donald Trump to discuss the case earlier this week.
They told the Daily Telegraph that they have been ‘dismayed’ by the lack of support from the Foreign Office.
Tim said: ‘We don’t understand why. Harry Dunn died in an accident and we feel that nobody wants us to get justice for him.
Charlotte added: ‘They want us to go away and forget about it all. they really do.
Bruce Charles, Charlotte’s husband, added: ‘Why haven’t they come back with any information for us?’
Floral tributes on the road outside RAF Croughton, in Northamptonshire, where Harry Dunn, 19, died when his motorbike was involved in a head-on collision in August
‘
Officers have stated the delay was in part due to Harry’s funeral and they are determined to get justice for the family.
They declined to comment to ITV News on the allegation that they were asked by the Foreign Office to delay telling the Dunn family about Anne Sacoolas’s departure.
The FCO has responded to the allegation in a statement saying, ‘We have been doing all we can to help the family to secure justice for Harry.
‘The Prime Minister and the President spoke last week about this matter and the Foreign Secretary has made clear to the US Ambassador and Secretary Pompeo what has happened is not acceptable.
‘We continue to press for the individual concerned to engage with the UK legal process’
Earlier this week Harry’s parents travelled to the US, and met Donald Trump in the Oval Office after an 11th hour invitation from the president.
It emerged later that Trump repeatedly asked them to meet her as as she waited outside the Oval Office and when they resisted he told them: ‘She’s here so let’s get some healing.
They told how the US President ‘took their breath away’ when he told them the woman who allegedly killed their son with her Volvo SUV outside an airbase in Britain was also in the White House.
Mrs Sacoolas, who claimed diplomatic immunity and fled the UK on a state-sponsored private jet last month, had been whisked from a secret location to Washington DC.
Yesterday Boris Johnson contradicted Donald Trump by insisting he did not ask him to set up a meeting between Harry’s parents and Mrs Sacoolas.
Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn said the US President ‘took their breath away’ when he told them in the Oval Office that Anne Sacoolas was also in the White House and told them: ‘She’s here so let’s get some healing’
The Prime Minister’s spokesman said Mr Johnson was not aware of the US President’s plans to arrange the meeting, despite the President claiming that Downing Street had asked him to do so.
‘The PM and the President spoke last Wednesday and the PM asked the President to do all he could to resolve the issue,’ the spokesman said.
‘During the conversation, the President raised a possibility of a meeting with Anne Sacoolas at the White House but at that stage we weren’t aware of any plans for the family to go (to the US) so it wasn’t discussed further.’
Mr Trump also made the incendiary claim that Harry’s parents had wanted to meet Mrs Sacoolas – but changed their minds when they arrived.
Harry’s family have always insisted that they will only meet her once she has returned to the UK to face justice over the car crash.
After telling the President that Mrs Sacoolas should stay away, Mrs Charles revealed: ‘I spoke directly to Mr Trump for a good few minutes. He did seem sincere, he didn’t try to interrupt me or cut me off.
‘At the end of the meeting it was him who took my hand and I squeezed it very tight. I said: ‘You need to see, if this was your son you’d be doing the same thing’. He said: ‘yes, yes I would’ and I said: ‘So please, please, do the right thing. Just try’. He squeezed my hand back and said he would ‘try to push from another angle’.’
But she added: ‘But if I’m totally honest, I don’t hold out too much hope that she’s going to be returned to us in the UK’.
Asked if she could speak to Anne mother-to-mother and what she’d say, Charlotte said: ‘I would just ask her to get on the plane and do the humane thing, do the right thing, set her children a good example.
‘She needs to do the right thing and make that decision herself to get back on the plane and come back to the UK and meet us on UK soil and face what she’s actually done.’
Harry Dunn’s bereft parents Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn (right with spokesman Radd Seiger) appeared on Good Morning Britain with Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid from New York, where they have spent the week on a US TV media blitz
President Trump, pictured yesterday in the Rose Garden with the Stanley Cup and the St. Louis Blues ice hockey team, is said to have promised to look at the case again ‘at a new angle’ after his offer of a meeting with Sacoolas was rebuffed
But she added: ‘But if I’m totally honest, I don’t hold out too much hope that she’s going to be returned to us in the UK’.
Asked if she could speak to Anne mother-to-mother and what she’d say, Charlotte said: ‘I would just ask her to get on the plane and do the humane thing, do the right thing, set her children a good example.
Harry died from his injuries after being hit on the wrong side of the road seven weeks ago
‘She needs to do the right thing and make that decision herself to get back on the plane and come back to the UK and meet us on UK soil and face what she’s actually done.’
Describing his pride watching his ex-wife speak to Trump, Harry’s father Tim said: ‘Charlotte was so strong – I was so proud – Mr Trump was listening, I don’t think he dared interrupt her. I like to think he’s an honourable man and that he will keep his promise to try to another way to move things forward’.
The family’s lawyer Radd Seiger has revealed he ended the talks after Mr Trump revealed the fugitive was next door – causing the President’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien to declare loudly: ‘She’s not coming back [to Britain]’.
He said the White House had tried to turn the meeting into a press call with a bank of photographers ready to capture the moment Harry’s parents met the woman who knocked down and killed their son.
He said: ‘It was almost like: ‘Hey I’ve got someone who wants to see you’. Then I looked to my side and I saw at least three photographers ready to do a press call’.
He added: ‘The family feel a little ambushed to say the least and disappointed they made the effort to go all the way there and all the way back with little progress towards achieving the closure they are so desperately seeking’.
He added: ‘It struck us that this meeting was hastily arranged by nincompoops on the run and in particular Mr O’Brien who appeared to be extremely uptight and aggressive and did not come across at all well in this meeting which required careful handling and sensitivity’.
Harry’s mother Charlotte told reporters outside the White House that Mr Trump had promised he would ‘push it from a different angle’ after they refused to see the woman next door.
She said: ‘We are still more than willing to meet her, but we made it very clear that that needs to be on our terms, on UK soil. And we could still work with that justice system to do anything we could.’
She said that Trump held her hand during the meeting and she felt that he was sincere.
‘He’s the one in control here, but we are in control of our situation as much as we can be. And we still want justice for Harry. And we will take it as far as we possibly can to ensure that that’s done,’ she added.
Nineteen-year-old Harry was killed in August when his motorcycle collided with a car driven by Sacoolas, who is a US diplomat’s wife, outside a British air force base used by the Americans in Northamptonshire.
Harry’s parents said they were not given an idea of what Sacoolas wanted to say to them and Trump did not suggest that he would send Sacoolas back to the UK.
Charlotte said that at the beginning of the meeting Trump ruled out Sacoolas returning to the UK but she added: ‘I do feel that at the end when he said that he would try to push this from a different angle, there’s that tiny little bit of hope that he will hopefully take another look and maybe work harder for us.’
Charlotte said they ‘were a bit shocked’ that they were asked to meet with their son’s alleged killer.
We are still more than willing to meet her, but we made it very clear that that needs to be on our terms, on UK soil. And we could still work with that justice system to do anything we could
Harry Dunn’s mother Charlotte Charles
She said: ‘It’s not appropriate to meet her without therapists and mediators, let alone for us as a family. But also to her. I don’t think it’s appropriate for her. How can it be comfortable for her to be thrown into a situation like that without therapists and mediators.’
The grieving mother added: ‘I feel like we’ve got a little bit of progress. We didn’t get the promises that we wanted. They couldn’t tell us who made the decision to let her go back to the U.S. We asked how long she was there for. They still stated three weeks. We’re not totally sure about that.’
The case has attracted widespread interest after Sacoolas claimed diplomatic immunity after the crash and flew back to the United States.
Sacoolas has not been charged with criminal wrongdoing but her claim of immunity and return to the U.S. provoked an uproar in Britain.
Trump met Harry Dunn’s parents, Charlotte Charles (pictured front) and Tim Dunn (in glasses above left), shown here speaking outside the White House yesterday
Harry Dunn’s mother Charlotte Charles is seen above addressing reporters alongside her husband Bruce Charles after leaving the White House on Tuesday evening
Emotional: Harry’s mother Charlotte Charles told reporters after the meeting: ‘We are still more than willing to meet her, but we made it very clear that that needs to be on our terms, on UK soil. And we could still work with that justice system to do anything we could’
Charlotte Charles holds hands with her husband Bruce Charles as they walk alongside Harry’s father Tim Dunn (in blue T-shirt), when arriving at Union Station in Washington on Tuesday ahead of their meeting at the White House
The case has attracted widespread interest after Sacoolas flew back to the United States following the crash and claimed diplomatic immunity. Harry Dunn’s father is seen above arriving in Washington DC Tuesday
Charlotte Charles and her husband Bruce arrive at Union Station in Washington DC ahead of the White House meeting
It is seven weeks since Mrs Sacoolas collided with Harry’s motorbike (pictured) on the road outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire
US Spy’s wife’s apology: ‘Made us feel worse’, says Harry Dunn’s father
Anne Sacoolas (pictured), 42, has yet to apology in her own words
Harry’s father Tim Dunn told the BBC’s Today Programme Ms Sacoolas’s statement through her lawyers apologising had made the situation ‘a little bit worse’.
‘Now she’s admitted it, we don’t understand why she’s not coming back – she’s admitted her guilt but we still can’t get any further forward with getting her back for some justice for Harry.’
When asked what the family planned to do next, he said: ‘I think we’re going to stick around for a couple of days just to see if things progress because it’s just been like a snowball effect.
‘We came on Sunday and within two days we’ve been to the White House. It’s absolutely bizarre and we just don’t know what the next day is likely to bring.’
In an interview with ITV’s Good Morning Britain, Ms Charles said she wasn’t holding out too much hope that Ms Sacoolas would return.
‘I think we’re just going to just be forever disappointed, forever disgusted in both the UK and US governments. It just doesn’t make sense to us as to why on earth this should be allowed to happen,’ she said.
She added: ‘We didn’t embark on this without putting some really good thought into it. He would have done the same for anyone of us.
‘We owe it to him to honour him and do our absolute best to get justice for Harry. If that doesn’t come in the way we want it, we will continue to work and we will try and get those diplomatic laws looked at.’
Harry’s father Tim Dunn said after the meeting: ‘The president was very professional and he spoke very well to us. He listened to Charlotte very well. She spoke excellent to him, and he was understanding. And I think he generally will look to try and resolve this is a way to help us.’
Charlotte said she thinks Harry would have been proud of them taking their fight to the White House.
She said: ‘He would have been very proud. Really proud. He was always one to stand up for his rights when he knew he was in the right. He was – he would do everything that he could possibly do to make sure that he had that heard.
‘Anyone that he felt was being served any injustice. You know, somebody that wasn’t being kind to another person. He would have their back. He would be really proud. He is riding the skies up there now and pushing us on to continue to do him proud. And more than anything, now, do his twin brother and his siblings proud.’
Tim Dunn added: ‘He would’ve been proud. He’d have probably had a laugh about it (being at the White House) as well. Probably, knowing Harry. And I think he’d be pleased that we’ve been doing the best that we can. He knew right from wrong, and I think he knows we’re trying to get it right for him.’
They did not say how long they spent with the president but said ‘they didn’t try to rush us out’.
Dunn’s parents had brought their case directly to U.S. audiences this week, holding a New York news conference and urging Sacoolas to return to Britain.
Earlier on Tuesday Sacoolas revealed that she had spoken to Harry before he died as she admitted for the first time she was driving on the wrong side of the road.
Sacoolas, 42, said she had ‘no time to react’ when the teenager came towards her on his motorbike over a hill.
A statement issued by her lawyers said: ‘Anne stayed on the scene of the accident to assist. She spoke to Harry Dunn to tell him that she would call for help.’
In her first account of what happened, she also said she flagged down another driver and then went to comfort her own children, who were in her crashed Volvo SUV.
The mother of three who flew home to the U.S. on a state-sponsored private jet, said she was ‘terribly, terribly sorry for that tragic mistake’.
Harry’s family, who met Foreign Secretary Dominic Rabb in the UK last week, have also demanded an investigation over the Foreign Office’s (FCO) advice to Northamptonshire Police that Sacoolas had diplomatic immunity.
They are demanding to see all emails, messages and notes sent in relation to her immunity status.
Speaking in New York, family spokesman Radd Seiger said: ‘We want to conduct an investigation into the FCO’s decision to advise Northamptonshire Police that this lady had the benefit of diplomatic immunity.’
If they are not happy with the documents, the family say they will then ask for a judge’s opinion on the lawfulness of the FCO’s decision.
After the meeting with Trump Seiger said: ‘Weren’t sure what the basis of the meeting was. That wasn’t made clear to us. We came in good faith and I have to say the president was warm when we met him. He was generous, he extended his condolences, I thought, perfectly appropriately. And he made it clear that he understood the family’s situation.’
He added that being asked to meet with Sacoolas was a ‘surprise’.
He said: ‘We had resolved that that’s not something we were prepared to do at this moment. This family still is emotionally shut down. And that, as you can all imagine, was potentially difficult … in the White House without therapists or mediators around us, I thought. So we declined that offer.
‘Charlotte did an amazing job of engaging with President Trump…As we walked out he said, ‘OK I’ll take another look.’ But again there’s no commitment. When is he going to take another look? And when is going to come back to us by. So my view is, look, dialogue is always good. We were very pleased to be here. It was certainly, I think, not a bad meeting. But we are no further on in terms of getting what we want, which is having Mrs. Sacoolas return to the UK. And in fact that was made pretty clear to us at one point, that that was never going to happen.’
To donate to the family’s fund click HERE
A letter sent to the family by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, explaining that the US suspect in the case of Harry´s death does not have diplomatic immunity