Harry Dunn’s Parents Now Call on Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to Order a Full Public Inquiry in to Handling of Events After Harry’s Death

Background

On 27 August 2019, Harry Dunn’s parents received the news no parent should ever have to receive. Harry was out doing what he loved most, riding his bike safely when he was struck by a car being driven on the wrong side of the road by Anne Sacoolas, the wife of an American CIA officer and a CIA officer herself. She left the country 19 days later, the USA claiming she had diplomatic immunity, thereby attempting to put her above the law. The Crown Prosecution Service concluded on 20 December that she was not in fact immune from prosecution and charged her with causing death by dangerous driving. Despite the UK then seeking her extradition, the USA continue to harbour her. She is a fugitive on the run and earlier in the week a an Interpol Red Notice was circulated worldwide. Should she set foot outside the United States, she will be provisionally arrested and returned to the UK to face charges. Had she had a legitimate claim to immunity, no such notice would have been circulated.

HARRY DUNN’S PARENTS ARE THIS WEEKEND CALLING FOR A FULL INDEPENDENT JUDICIALLY LED INQUIRY INTO THE HANDLING OF AFFAIRS BY BORIS JOHNSON’S GOVERNMENT AFTER HARRY’S DEATH.

• Boris Johnson’s government have insisted repeatedly that they handled the Anne Sacoolas affair lawfully and properly. Harry’s parents say that simply not the case.
• Documents reveal that the FCO themselves took the position that she did not have diplomatic immunity and informed government ministers accordingly. Yet, the FCO told Northants Police that she did have immunity, effectively ending their investigation into Harry’s death.
• Documents also disclosed by the media and to the parents in the judicial review over recent weeks clearly show that Boris Johnson’s Government secretly made the decision themselves to allow Mrs Sacoolas to leave the country, keeping Northants Police in the dark and not telling them that she left until the day after she had gone.
• It was for Northants Police to establish whether she had diplomatic immunity or not, not the FCO. In the case of any doubt, it should have been put before the Courts to resolve.
• In letting Anne Sacoolas go, the parents say that the FCO acted totally unlawfully as they had no power or authority to do. That would constitute misconduct in public office. A clear breach of separation of powers. In interfering in the police’s lawful investigation, such conduct may well also amount to obstructing justice, a serious criminal offence likely with consequences for the decision makers

Harry Dunn’s parents have met several times with key government ministers. Despite the duty of candour that they owe to the parents, at no stage was the truth disclosed to them, despite probing by their advisers. The whole world has witnessed the extent to which their misery has been compounded by their treatment at the hands of the Government. Instead of coming forward to help them in their greatest hour of need, it now appears and the parents strongly believe that they engaged in the most awful of attempted cover ups imaginable thereby causing untold damage to innocent and decent citizens, the very people they owe their first duty to, to safeguard and protect.

Radd Seiger, adviser and spokesperson said:

These events must never be allowed to happen in our great country. Harry’s family’s rights were trodden on by the very people who were elected to represent their interests. You wouldn’t believe it if it had been scripted.

As a friend of the family first and foremost, I have been appalled and disgusted at the way this decent family have been treated. Their only crime was to lose their son. I then watched and waited for those in authority to come and help them, but when I saw that no one was, I did what any good neighbour would have done and went to help. Two weeks later we were all in the White House being ambushed by President Trump. It has been the most awful stressful time for the family and yet, despite our best attempts to engage the Government in dialogue to resolve the issues amicably and privately, they have merely resorted to misleading the parents and the nation about their own misconduct and appear to have been desperately trying to bury the truth.

Well the truth is now coming out but there is still so much more to come. They let Anne Sacoolas go and they should not have.

On behalf of the parents, I now call on the Foreign Secretary Dominic Radd to call for a full independent judicially led inquiry. The parents have also asked the Coroner to convert Harry’s inquest, whenever that happens, into a full public inquiry and that request has been referred to the Chief Coroner Mark Lucraft QC for him to consider. Given the horrific nature of what has happened in this case with all its different strands and the extent to which Government has sought to cover it up, there must be an inquiry that the nation can have confidence in so that we can restore trust and faith in government, so as to ensure that anyone involved in misconduct in public office are held to account and so that lessons are learned and systems are put in place so that no such abuse of human rights is committed by Government again. Such inquiry must touch on the following non exhaustive list of matters:

1. Who does and who does not have diplomatic immunity at US bases in the UK?

2. No diplomat should ever be put above the law again in the UK.

3. Who in Government decided to allow Anne Sacoolas to leave and why?

4. Who ordered that the matter should be covered up and why?

5. A review of the hopelessly imbalanced extradition treaty in the UK which must be replaced with a fairer one

6. Why was the ambulance 40+ minutes late getting to Harry and what can be done to ensure this never happens again.

Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn said:

We can’t bring Harry back. We know that. But like anyone else, we are entitled to see that justice is done for our son who did nothing wrong. Despite what the government think, his life did matter and we are so grateful to Radd for knocking on our day that day when we had been told we had no chance of getting justice. He was the only one who offered to help. He has known Harry since he was 2 years old. He gave us hope and belief. Then with the help of the media, the whole nation and millions of people all around the world, including the wonderful people of America, came to support us too. That has meant the world. Without public pressure, this whole disgusting saga would have been buried. We promised `harry we would get him justice. That is what we will do and no one will get in our way.

We have given the government every chance to come clean to us. They slapped us in the face each time, clearly trying to hide what they did.

Our only wish now apart from ensuring Mrs Sacoolas faces justice, is that this should never happen to another family again. Following our experience, this government clearly cannot be trusted to look after us the people. As a nation, we have to get back to a more decent way of doing things. This is not the sort of society we should be where our elected officials think it’s ok to kick those in most need of help.