Northamptonshire coroner Anne Pember has criticised the US government for a lack of training provided to employee Anne Sacoolas prior to the crash which killed teenage motorcyclist Harry Dunn.
The 19-year-old was killed in August 2019 when US government employee Anne Sacoolas’s car collided with his bike while she was driving on the wrong side of the road outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire.
Diplomatic immunity was asserted on her behalf by the US State Department and she was able to leave the country shortly after the crash.
She appeared before a High Court judge at the Old Bailey via video-link in December 2022, where she pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving.
Sacoolas was advised against attending her sentencing hearing by her employer, which prompted the family to say they were “horrified” that the US government was “actively interfering in our criminal justice system”.
Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb handed Ms Sacoolas an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months.
The Dunn family took their four-year campaign for justice to the US after the teenager’s death, which even led to a meeting with then-president Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington DC.
Ms Sacoolas did not take up the option to attend the inquest into Harry’s death – a a decision his mother, Charlotte Charles, described as “incomprehensible” and “disrespectful”.
In a witness statement read out at the inquest, Ms Ms Sacoolas said that the killing of the teenage motorcyclist was something that will live with her “every single day for the rest of my life”.
Recalling the incident in August 2019, Ms Sacoolas said she “instinctively moved to the right side of the road” and was not aware she was on the wrong side of the road “until after the collision”.
She then “hysterically flagged down a motorist” after the crash and “begged her to get help”.
