The parents of a British teenager killed in a crash with a US diplomat’s wife brought their case to New York on Monday — but refuse to meet the American “fugitive” until she promises to return to the UK.
Charlotte Charles, 44, and Tim Dunn, 50, arrived in the Big Apple on Sunday, hoping to eventually travel to meet President Trump to vent their fury over Anne Sacoolas being allowed to stay in the US by claiming immunity, according to The Sun.
Their arrival came a day after the 42-year-old diplomat’s wife broke her silence — saying she wanted to meet them to “express her deepest sympathies and apologies” for their son’s “tragic accident.”
But Harry Dunn’s grieving parents said the meeting will only happen if Sacoolas, whose husband, Jonathan, is based at RAF Croughton, promises to return to the country she fled while claiming diplomatic immunity. They’ll hold a press conference Monday morning.
“The family’s most important issue in all of this is Mrs. Sacoolas just skipped the country after Harry died. And that’s not the way things work,” family spokesman Radd Seiger told Sky News Monday. “They committed right from the start that she needs to come back and present herself to Northamptonshire police and then let the process go where it may. We’re very clear there’s not much point in meeting and having pleasantries if that commitment isn’t there.”
He added, “You commit to going back … and then we will happily sit down and thrash out” how they can get together and proceed.
“With goodwill on both sides, I’m sure we can make this happen,” Seiger said. “But before we even start, there is going to need to be that commitment that she comes back.”
The family’s arrival in New York also coincides with British authorities insisting Sacoolas’ immunity does not apply outside the UK — meaning she could be sued here in America.
The Dunn family’s lawyer, Mark Stephens, called her “a fugitive from British justice” and insisted to Sky News, “She wasn’t entitled to diplomatic immunity in the first place.”
Dunn was killed Aug. 27 when his motorcycle was struck head-on by Sacoolas, who allegedly was driving on the wrong side of the road outside a US intelligence facility in Northamptonshire, England.
Sacoolas — who reportedly had one of her three children in the car at the time — initially cooperated with police but eventually left the country.