Foreign Office failures led to opportunities being missed to achieve justice for the family of Harry Dunn, killed in August 2019 in a motorcycle crash outside a US airbase, an independent review commissioned by the Labour government has found.
Dame Anne Owers, who led the review, said: “Ministers and senior officials were not involved early enough, and this meant that opportunities were lost to influence – rather than respond to – events.
“Direct communication with the family was late and sporadic, and the Foreign Office was slow to realise that they were allies in achieving justice and securing positive change.”
Dunn was killed aged 19 when he was hit by a car driven on the wrong side of the road by Anne Sacoolas, the wife of a US state department official based at RAF Croughton. Sacoolas, a US citizen, had been in the country for three weeks, and admitted responsibility.
Within days, Sacoolas was allowed to leave the country under a technicality that she was immune from criminal prosecution, even though a 1995 agreement between the US and the UK waived immunity for all directly employed staff at the base.
The US told the Foreign Office within three days of the accident that the immunity waiver did not apply to dependents of US diplomats, and a month later Sacoolas and her family were withdrawn from the UK and returned to the US.
But the UK foreign secretary at the time, Dominic Raab, was not informed of the dispute over immunity until the day after Sacoolas had left the country to avoid any risk of prosecution.
Foreign Office officials also did not inform the Northamptonshire police force of the doubts about her immunity until the same day. Dunn’s family were not informed by the police of Sacoolas’ departure until 26 September, nearly a month after his death, by which time they had, through their own sources, worked out she had fled the UK.
Owers report says: “It is clear that there was shock, frustration and exasperation at the US’s decision to refuse to waive immunity. It was considered that the US was exploiting a loophole in the Croughton Agreement, in a way that had never been intended by the drafters, and which resulted in the anomaly that Sacoolas, as a dependant, had immunity that her husband, the principal, lacked.”
And it found it extraordinary that there was such “a significant delay” in the case being elevated within the Foreign Office so serious senior representations could have been made to the US embassy that the UK disapproved of the US’s intentions.
Owers said the decision by Foreign Office to tell the US government they should “feel able” to put state department employee Sacoolas on the next flight home “reflected a reluctant recognition of the US’s decision, rather than agreement with it”.
The review also found the Foreign Office and the police created distrust by refusing to take the Dunn family into their confidence earlier. “It would have been possible to explain to the family at an early stage that there were complex issues of diplomatic immunity which were still being explored, and the possible outcomes, without destabilising the significant diplomatic efforts being made,” it reads.
The 40-page review also highlighted a disastrous first meeting on 9 October between the Dunn family and Raab. It says: “The meeting ended with some of the family in tears, having interpreted what they had heard as meaning that nothing could or would be done. It is clear that they expected something more concrete and positive to come out of the meeting.
“There had been no direct contact between the FCO and the family until five days before the meeting, and therefore no opportunity to build relationships or create trust. Nearly all of those present to whom I have spoken believe that the meeting could have been handled and prepared for better.”
It adds: “The foreign secretary, having stated the problem including [Sacoolas’s] departure, invited the family to say what else he could have done. This was heard by the family as a statement of defeat, rather than an invitation to discuss options.”
Sacoolas, in unprecedented remote proceedings in the US, was eventually tried and convicted of death by careless driving. She undertook some community service in the US.
Harry’s mother, Charlotte Charles – whose conduct is praised throughout the report – thanked the Labour former foreign secretary David Lammy for setting up the review, and his successor, Yvette Cooper, for agreeing to implement its recommendations. Charles said the review “made for incredibly difficult reading”.
“We knew we were let down by the FCO when we lost Harry and we knew that we deserved better,” she said.
