5 hours ago
2
A parliamentary review into how the UK’s Foreign Office handled the death of the teenage motorcyclist Harry Dunn will not include scrutiny of the role or actions of the US government, it is understood.
The 19-year-old’s family met senior officials at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) on Wednesday where they were told the probe will be led by former chief inspector of prisons Dame Anne Owers.
The review is expected to examine the support the FCDO offered the Dunn family after Harry was killed by a former US state department employee in a road crash in 2019 in Northamptonshire, the PA news agency reported.
The American driver, Anne Sacoolas, had diplomatic immunity asserted on her behalf after the incident outside RAF Croughton before a senior Foreign Office official said they should “feel able” to put her on the next flight home.
PA understands the review, which is scheduled to last for three months, is also set to look at the actions taken by the Foreign Office in the months after Harry’s death and the nature of internal decision-making.
It will also look to identify lessons to be learned for the FCDO for comparable future situations.
The involvement of the US government, which asserted diplomatic immunity on behalf of Sacoolas, will not be examined alongside any issues covered in previous court hearings.
The Dunn family’s spokesperson Radd Seiger told PA: “I think overall the family are feeling that we are going to leave a legacy for Harry, which is that no family should ever be treated the way this family were by their own government.
“The American government really were stepping on their rights; nobody really from the government stepped forward to help them.
“Dame Anne is going to look into all of this and make a series of recommendations to David Lammy that should this ever happen again, whether here or abroad, that they will get the support and representation of the government that they need. So we are very, very pleased.
“The reason we got justice for Harry in the end was no thanks to the United Kingdom government; it was thanks to the British public and the media on both sides of the Atlantic, who spoke truth to power and made sure that we held them to account.”
Last week, Northamptonshire police apologised for “clear and significant shortcomings” in its investigation into Dunn’s death after a review found the force “failed his family on a number of fronts”.
