A US citizen who killed British teenager Harry Dunn in a road crash has been given spared jail after his family’s three year fight for justice finally ended.
Anne Sacoolas, 45, was charged with the 19-year-old’s death after her Volvo, which she was driving on the wrong side of the road, hit the motorbike he was riding near military base RAF Croughton, Northamptonshire in August 2019.
Sacoolas, a former employee of the US intelligence services, is currently in the US and did not travel to the UK for her sentencing.
She was given a suspended sentence of eight months in prison and has been disqualified from driving for 12 months.
Judge Cheema-Grubb told the Old Bailey Sacoolas’s lawyers said the US government had objected to her travelling to London because it “could place significant US interests at risk”.
Reacting to the sentence, Mr Dunn’s mother Charlotte Charles referred to a promise she made to her son in hospital to get justice, saying: “Job done. Promise complete. Anne Sacoolas has a criminal record for the rest of her life.”
In court, prosecuting lawyer Duncan Atkinson KC said that Sacoolas told a first responder at the scene: “It’s all my fault. I was on the wrong side of the road. I have only been here a couple of weeks.”
Mr Dunn told the witness: “Don’t let me die”. His mother Charlotte Charles told the Old Bailey on Thursday that her son’s death “haunts me every minute of every day”.
When the police arrived at the scene, Sacoolas was in shock with her head in her hands and confirmed the crash had been her fault, the court heard.
There was significant damage to both the car and motorbike during the collision. The Volvo’s airbags were activated and the rear window was smashed, while the motorbike was on fire.
Sacoolas had been driving her children home from a barbeque and she told police that “it was when I got my kids to the side of the road that I had realised what had happened”.
She was employed by an intelligence agency in the US at the time of the crash and the US embassy told the UK Foreign Office that she was covered by diplomatic immunity meaning she would not face prosecution over his death.
They told the FCDO that Sacoolas would be leaving the UK on 13 September 2019, something then-foreign secretary Dominic Raab objected to in “strong and clear terms”.
However, in December 2019 the Crown Prosecution Service authorised Northamptonshire Police to charge Sacoolas with Mr Dunn’s death by dangerous driving.
After a long legal battle between the Dunn family, the Foreign Office and the US government, in October of this year, Sacoolas pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey in London to causing the teenager’s death by careless driving.
Her diplomatic immunity ceased on her return to the US, but her extradition to the UK was denied, the court heard on Thursday.
Harry Dunn’s mother Charlotte Charles broke down in court as she spoke of how her son was “so senselessly and cruelly taken from us.”
“My beautiful son Harry, twin brother of Niall, is gone and is never coming back.”
She continued: “I didn’t make it to the hospital in time before he passed and the thought of that haunts me to my core. My job is to comfort my children and I wasn’t there for Harry to comfort him in what must have been an awful and painful, slow death.”
Ms Charles added: “His passing haunts me every minute of every day and I’m not sure how I’m ever going to get over it.
“I made a promise to Harry in the hospital that we would get him justice and a mother never breaks a promise to her son.”
Sacoolas did not attend court in person on Thursday, on the advice of the US government, despite repeated calls by judges hearing the case that she should be there.
Judge Cheema-Grubb told the Old Bailey that one of Sacoolas’s lawyers told the court that she had been advised by the US government that her return to the UK for the sentencing hearing “could place significant US interests at risk”.
Instead, Sacoolas appeared via video link split screen with her US-based lawyer, Amy Jeffress.
Sacoolas’s lawyer Ben Cooper KC told the court that she is deeply remorseful for what has happened.
Mr Cooper read a statement on her behalf, which said: “I am deeply sorry for the pain that I have caused and it is for that reason that I have been committed to a resolution of this case. I know there is nothing I can say to change what has happened.
“I cannot imagine the loss and I too deeply grieve for Harry and his family.”
Mr Dunn’s family spokesperson Rad Sieger said outside court that “our real enemy here is not Ms Sacoolas, our real enemy here is the US government.”
He said the US “decided to kick them in the stomach, and continued to kick them in the stomach for three years”
Mr Sieger’s son Isaac, who was a friend of Harry’s, said: “Harry was a great person, caring, he was taken too soon. The way the US government has treated this family with utter disdain.”
Addressing US officials, he added: “You’re not our friend, this is not how allies treat one another.”
Sacoolas’s decision to remain in the US was branded “incredibly disappointing” by Mr Dunn’s mother Charlotte Charles.
