News / Foreign Policy

Harry Dunn’s mum reaches out to US presidential candidate Joe Biden

Sunday, 18 October 2020 3:31 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 18 October 2020 7:10 PM ]

Charlotte Charles [L] has pleaded with Joe Biden [R] to help bring her son Harry's [inset] killer to justice if he wins early November's US presidential race

Tragic Northamptonshire teenager Harry Dunn’s grieving mother has called on US presidential candidate, Joe Biden, to help extradite her son’s killer to the UK if he wins next month’s election.

Harry Dunn’s killer signals willingness to stand ‘virtual trial’

Former CIA officer Anne Sacoolas may agree to a

Harry, 19, was killed in August 2019 after former US spy, Anne Sacoolas, crashed into his motorbike outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire, which houses a US spy base.

She was driving on the wrong side of the road at the time.

Sacoolas, who is married to a serving US spy formerly based at RAF Croughton, subsequently fled Britain with the help of the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

Harry Dunn family urges government to pressure Mike Pompeo

Harry Dunn

The former CIA officer was charged with causing death by dangerous driving last December by the Crown Prosecution Service, the UK’s prosecuting authority. The crime of causing death by dangerous driving can attract a custodial sentence of up to 14 years.

In a video message on Sunday, Harry’s grieving mother, Charlotte Charles, made an emotional appeal to Democratic party presidential candidate Biden, who lost his eldest son to cancer in 2015, pleading that her family needs justice in order to “help us on the path” to recovery.

Ms Charles urged Biden to “do your best to amend” the situation, complaining that Sacoolas is “walking free” and “tearing us apart as a family”.

“I please urge you, should you win on November 3 to please reconsider the position the US has taken against us – and when I say us I don’t just mean myself and the rest of the parents, I mean us as the UK as well”, Harry’s mum pleaded to Biden.

Ms Charles’ emotional outreach to Biden is being widely seen as a reflection of the Dunn family’s exasperation with both the US and UK government’s intransigence over the issue.

It is worth noting that US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has repeatedly rejected a half-hearted extradition request from the UK, describing the decision as "final".

US continues to display arrogance in Harry Dunn case

The US State Department has all but ruled out extraditing the woman charged with the tragic death of young Harry Dunn.

The case has assumed diplomatic significance by way of a public outcry in the UK over the British government’s reluctance to seriously push the US on the matter.

Alluding to the diplomatic dimension, Ms Charles told Biden: “One US citizen has taken the life of my boy and is still not facing the justice system here in the UK for that. Please do your best to amend it”.