Harry Dunn’s parents reject ‘bombshell’ offer to meet Anne Sacoolas during Trump talks

Harry Dunn’s parents have refused to meet the American woman responsible for his death after they learnt she was in the White House during their talks with Donald Trump.

Tim Dunn and Charlotte Charles said “the bombshell was dropped” that Anne Sacoolas was in the room next door to meet them as they discussed their case with the US president on Tuesday.

Their son Harry, 19, was riding his motorbike when he was killed in a collision involving Mrs Sacoolas, the wife of a US diplomat, outside an RAF base in Northamptonshire in August.

After meeting Mr Trump, Ms Charles told reporters outside the White House: “We made it very clear, as we’ve said all along… we would still love to meet with her but it has to be on our terms and on UK soil.

“She needs to come back and face the justice system.”

During their meeting, Mr Trump told Harry’s parents that Mrs Sacoolas would not be returning to the UK, but he would look at their case “from a different angle” in the wake of their talks.

She was allowed to return to the US after being granted diplomatic immunity because of her husband’s work, and Harry’s parents have travelled to the US to demand she faces “justice”.

Ms Charles said the president was “quite respondent” and he agreed that he would be trying to get justice if it was his son who had been killed.

She told reporters: “When he [President Trump] held my hand, I gripped it a lot tighter and I was honest with him and just said, as I said a while ago, ‘if it was your son you would be doing the same as us’.

“He actually gripped my hand a little bit tighter and said ‘yes I would be’.

“And that’s when he said he would try and look at this from a different angle.”

Mr Dunn said the family declined to meet Mrs Sacoolas at the White House because “it felt a bit rushed”.

He added: “I don’t think it would have gone too well so that’s why we refused.”

Ms Charles said the president “seemed to understand that the meeting needs to be with therapists and mediators in the room, and not just her and us”.

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She added that the family spent about 15 minutes with Mr Trump and he was “very gracious” and “welcoming”.

Mark Stephens, a lawyer who has been advising the family, said that the decision to blindside Harry’s parents at the White House had been a “gargantuan miscalculation”.

He told Sky News: “They hadn’t expected the head of US spying to be in the room curating the meeting, nor had they expected Mrs Sacoolas to be in an adjacent room and the White House press corps would be in yet another room.

“The idea the head of US spying had would be that he would curate a meeting between Mrs Sacoolas and the Dunn family and then bring in the press corps to show it was all happy families.

“Unfortunately it was a gargantuan miscalculation and it’s just one of a series of gargantuan miscalculations, spiriting here away from the UK, making her a fugitive from justice and bringing her in that way was just so wrong.

“We had always said this was a meeting that needed to take place in private, not curated by spies, politicians or indeed lawyers.”

The Foreign Office has said Mrs Sacoolas no longer has diplomatic immunity because she has returned home, meaning the case can be taken forward by Northamptonshire Police.

Detectives visited the scene where Harry was killed on Tuesday and said prosecutors would receive a file on the case “very soon”.

Mrs Sacoolas has accepted she was driving on the wrong side of the road at the time of the fatal crash and is “terribly, terribly sorry for that tragic mistake”, a source close to her told Sky News.

Harry’s family have called on the Foreign Office to release all documents relating to its advice to Northamptonshire Police regarding the diplomatic immunity granted to Ms Sacoolas.

(c) Sky News 2019: Harry Dunn’s parents reject ‘bombshell’ offer to meet Anne Sacoolas during Trump talks