Harry Dunn’s mother has said she is “unspeakably hurt” that her son’s killer, Anne Sacoolas, has refused to attend the inquest into his death, saying it was “bitterly disappointing and, as a mother, utterly incomprehensible”.
An inquest into Dunn’s death resumed on Monday, almost five years after the 19-year-old was killed when his motorcycle collided head-on with Sacoolas, who was driving on the wrong side of the road outside RAF Croughton, a US military base in Northamptonshire.
Last year the Northamptonshire senior coroner, Anne Pember, invited Sacoolas to attend the inquest remotely, an offer that “had not been taken up”, the inquest heard. Her evidence will be read out in court instead.
Speaking through tears, Charlotte Charles, Dunn’s mother, told the hearing: “Learning that Anne Sacoolas will not be attending Harry’s inquest this week was bitterly disappointing and, as a mother, is utterly incomprehensible to me.
“She could have chosen to give me and our family this opportunity to finally understand what led to Harry’s death that night. But no,” she said. “I am unspeakably hurt that she has chosen to hide instead and it cannot help but feel disrespectful to Harry, the life he had and the future he lost.”
Ben Cooper KC, representing Sacoolas, said she had given the coroner a full witness statement, “provided as much detail as possible” and was “keen to answer any new questions”. He did not provide a reason for why she had declined to attend.
Inquest proceedings were delayed due to a years-long fight by Dunn’s family to bring criminal charges against Sacoolas, who had diplomatic immunity asserted on her behalf by the US and left the UK 19 days after Dunn’s death.
The family’s campaign for justice included meeting Donald Trump at the White House to ask the then president to review a decision to block an extradition request for Sacoolas.
In December 2022, Sacoolas attended court remotely and was given an eight-month suspended sentence and disqualified from driving for 12 months after admitting to causing death by careless driving.
Giving evidence, PC Al Knapper, of Northamptonshire police, said that when he arrived on the scene in August 2019 he recalled seeing Sacoolas crying with her head in her hands and commenting that she had been “so stupid”.
Dunn’s father, Tim Dunn, read an emotive statement to Northamptonshire coroner’s court on Monday in which he described comforting his son on the roadside after the crash.
“I could hear Harry moaning with pain, and I told him I was there and to let the doctors do their thing to help him,” he said. “I told him: ‘I will see you at the hospital. Do what the doctors say, and I love you.’ Little did I know these would be my last words to him and the last time I would see him alive.
“To this day, this part haunts me. I wish I did more, said more or just held him. As he was being loaded into the ambulance, even though I could see his bones sticking out of his arms, I did not think he would die.”
The four-day inquest will examine what training was given to Sacoolas about driving in the UK, the history of road traffic collisions in that area, as well as whether delays by emergency services caused or contributed to Dunn’s death.
Dunn lay by the side of the road for 43 minutes before an ambulance arrived because the urgency of his case was wrongly categorised as non-life threatening, despite him “breaking every major bone”, the inquest heard.
Dr Alexander James, a consultant anaesthetist who treated Dunn after arriving with an air ambulance, said Dunn’s injuries were the worst he had ever seen.
Dunn was conscious and talking while he lay by the roadside but had a cardiac arrest shortly before arriving at hospital and was found to have died from blood loss.
“If he had arrived at hospital 10 to 20 minutes earlier there is a chance, albeit small, the outcome could have been different,” said Dr Samy Sadek, an emergency medicine and pre-hospital expert, told the inquest.
The inquest continues.
