10-07-2025
Harry Dunn's mum meets chair of long-awaited review into government's handling of her son's death
The mother of Harry Dunn says she hopes it is the "beginning of the end" after meeting the chair of an independent review team who will investigate the government's handling of his death.
Charlotte Charles met Dame Anne Owers at the Foreign Office in London ahead of her review into how the British government, led by the Conservatives at the time, dealt with the case.
Mr Dunn, 19, died after the motorbike he was riding collided with a car driven by American citizen, Anne Sacoolas, who was travelling on the wrong side of the road outside RAF Croughton, a US military base in Northamptonshire, in August 2019.
Ms Sacoolas was not arrested at the scene as Northamptonshire Police believed the 'necessity test' had not been met and she was able to leave the UK under diplomatic immunity laws 19 days after the crash - something the force has since apologised for.
The family say they felt let down by the former regime when they turned to them for help to bring her to justice after a campaign lasting three years.
Ms Sacoolas eventually pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving via video link in December 2022, and received an eight-month suspended prison sentence.
Now an independent review will be carried out by Dame Anne Owers after it was given the go-ahead by Foreign Secretary David Lammy this week.
On her meeting with Dame Owers, Ms Charles said afterwards: "I feel it went as well as I hoped for. She seems like a trustworthy person.
"She was calm. She wanted to know about Harry, she wanted to learn about him as a person and she really was fundamentally interested in where my fight and where my campaign was born from."
Radd Sieger, the spokesperson for the family, said: "When we lost Harry, we were determined to do two things, one was obviously to get justice for the family which we eventually did, but the other part was to leave him as many legacies as we could to ensure his loss was not in vain.
"We want to work with Dame Anne in all that she does to ensure that lessons are learned.
"No family should have to rely on its community, the media or the great British public to help get justice, it should be the people in government. So we will work with Dame Anne and help her and ensure no stone is left unturned and that no family goes through what this poor family has gone through.
Ms Charles added: "I think this is the beginning of the end. The promise that I made to Harry on the night that he died, that justice would be done, ended up expanding quite considerably.
"It became a promise really to the country as well to make sure that I would do everything that I could to just to make sure that the way we were treated wouldn't happen to anyone else.
"So it became very wide and varied but I really do feel now with everything we've achieved so far that this really is the beginning of the last thing I can do so that Harry's death does lead to change."
