Wife of diplomat refuses to return to UK to face charges over death of 19-year-old

This article is more than 8 months old

This article is more than 8 months old

Family and friends of Harry Dunn have demonstrated outside the RAF airbase near where he was killed and warned that protests could spread to other bases across the country.

Dunn, 19, died in a road crash in Northamptonshire in August after which US citizen Anne Sacoolas departing for America under diplomatic immunity. The Crown Prosecution Service has said that Sacoolas would face a charge of causing death by dangerous driving if she returned to the UK.

Almost 100 friends and supporters of the Dunn family temporarily blocked the entrance to RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire, asking the US authorities to comply with the UK extradition process. They highlighted the injustice of the fact that some US citizens are able to commit crimes on British soil and then depart without being subject to UK law.

Dunn died after his motorbike was in collision with a car driven by Sacoolas outside RAF Croughton, Northamptonshire, where her husband worked as a US intelligence officer.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Harry Dunn. Photograph: PA Media

Sacoolas’s lawyer said she would not return to the UK “to face a potential jail sentence for what was a terrible but unintentional accident”.

US officials described the demonstration as not “a helpful development”.

Radd Seiger, spokesperson for the Dunn family, said: “If anybody in Washington thinks that anybody here is going to accept a position where it is OK for American service members to come over here and take a life and then get on the next flight home, well they’ve got another thing coming to them.

“We don’t want to do it but ultimately these [American] bases are posing a threat to us, not just in Northamptonshire but right around the country. If necessary, because we feel under threat, we will close them down.”

He said they felt a demonstration was “the only way we can get our feelings across to Washington”.

Anne Sacoolas refuses to return to face Harry Dunn charges Read more

“Ultimately if they don’t send [Sacoolas] back we will not accept [RAF Croughton] being in our community,” he added.

Dunn’s mother, Charlotte Charles, on Saturday night said the new year had brought a renewed sense of optimism to the family to carry out the promise they made to the teenager on the night that he died that they would see justice done.

“We are going to gain more strength and momentum to carry on moving forward,” she added.

“Never once has that promise to Harry wavered or flattened or softened. Nothing will stop us,” she told Sky News.