The Foreign Office lost crucial opportunities to influence the United States after failing to treat the Harry Dunn case as a crisis, an independent review has concluded. Dame Anne Owers found "failings and omissions" in how the department handled the 2019 death of the British teenager in a fatal road crash involving a car driven by Anne Sacoolas outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire.
Sacoolas, a US state department employee, asserted diplomatic immunity and left the UK just 19 days after the fatal crash. The review found the Foreign Office did not escalate the matter to a sufficiently senior level early enough, losing opportunities "to influence, rather than respond to, events."
Dame Anne identified multiple systemic failures. The Foreign Office communicated with the Dunn family late, sporadically, and events often overtook its efforts. An internal Foreign Office note expressed concern over "unpalatable headlines" just three days after the crash. The department failed to recognize quickly that the family could be "allies in achieving justice."
The review also found "an over-rigid demarcation of roles" within the Foreign Office that failed to make best use of available knowledge and skills. Dame Anne said it was her "strong view" that officials should have involved then-foreign secretary Dominic Raab "far earlier in the process."
Family's emotional response
Charlotte Charles, Harry's mother, said reading the report was "a hugely emotional experience" that triggered anger. She told the Press Association: "Reading her report has been a hugely emotional experience and has triggered a lot of anger, taking it back as it does to those early days after we lost Harry. Having turned to the authorities for help, we got nothing from them."
She added: "The report confirms what we have lived with every day for more than six years, that mistakes were made, that opportunities were missed and that our family was not treated with the honesty or urgency that any grieving parent deserves."
Charles said the family had long feared Harry's case was not taken seriously at the highest levels. "Dame Anne's findings show that those fears were justified. That is incredibly painful to hear, even now," she said.
Key recommendations
Dame Anne recommended an "immediate surge of resources" for deaths involving exceptional circumstances like diplomatic immunity. She called for early escalation to ministers and senior officials in such cases.
The review also recommended that the revised Croughton immunity agreement be presented to Parliament. The original agreement granted dependants of administrative and technical staff immunity but not the staff themselves, a loophole the US government exploited.
Timeline and outcome
The Dunn family campaigned for three years for justice, even meeting US President Donald Trump. Anne Sacoolas eventually pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving via video link at the Old Bailey in December 2022. She received an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months.
Former foreign secretary David Lammy officially launched the independent review in July. Dame Anne noted that while the US's initial response shocked officials and ministers, who made their views clear at high levels, the documentation showed Foreign Office communication "reflected a reluctant recognition of the US's decision, rather than agreement with it."
Note: This article was created with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
