Family of British teen killed in crash involving US driver receive police apology after review

LONDON (AP) — A British police force apologized Wednesday to the family of teenage motorcyclist Harry Dunn who was killed by an American government employee driving on the wrong side of the road near a U.S. airbase.

In a statement following the publication of a review into the incident, Northamptonshire Police apologized to Dunn’s family for “a failure on our part to do the very best for the victim in this case.”

The review criticized the police force, specifically former chief constable Nick Adderley, for the way the investigation was handled and said priority was given to the welfare of the suspect, Anne Sacoolas, over a “prompt and effective investigation.”

It also and found that there is potentially a culture at Northamptonshire Police of not arresting suspects “in circumstances such as these, which could lead to evidence not being obtained.”

Reacting to the review, Harry’s mother, Charlotte Charles, said the failures identified were something “no family should ever have to endure.”

“Today’s review report confirms what we have known for years, that we were failed by the very people we should have been able to trust,” she said. “Harry was left to die on the roadside. Sacoolas was not arrested, even though the police had every power to do so. She fled the country, and they didn’t tell us”

Sacoolas was driving on the wrong side of the road when her car struck and killed 19-year-old Dunn near U.S. military base RAF Croughton. Unlike in the U.S., drivers in the U.K. drive on the left-hand side of the road.

Sacoolas and her husband, an American intelligence officer, were able to leave the U.K. under diplomatic immunity laws 19 days after the crash in August 2019. The U.S. government had invoked diplomatic immunity on her behalf, prompting an outcry in Britain.

She admitted to police two months after the accident that she “drove like an American.” She was given an eight-month suspended prison sentence in December 2022, though she declined to come to Britain for the court hearing. The judge in the case reduced the penalty because of Sacoolas’ guilty plea and previous good character.

A year ago, a British coroner criticized the U.S. government over a lack of training for its diplomatic personnel at the conclusion of the inquest

Sacoolas, who told police that she worked as an analyst for the U.S. State Department, declined to make the journey to the U.K. from the U.S. for last year’s inquest. She has said she made a “tragic mistake” and has apologized for the “pain that I have caused.”