Harry Dunn Case Update: A Civil Suit is Filed, A Bad Guy Talks a Lot, UK Government Contradicts Itself, and Virtual Nonsense Abounds

The UK authorities held a meeting with the Dunn family last week, billed as an update on what they've been doing in the months since they charged the American driver with reckless driving but were denied her extradition back to the UK by the U.S. Secretary of State. As usual, no one was satisfied with anything and we are no closer to a resolution then before. In fact, the events of last week most likely will ensure a couple more years of futile activity. The BBC reports:

Harry Dunn's family say they have been told prosecutors do not believe the woman accused of killing the teenager in a crash had diplomatic immunity.

Commenting after the meeting, Greg McGill, the CPS [Commonwealth Prosecution Service] director of legal services, said "Today we have met with the family of Harry Dunn to update them on the various steps the CPS has taken over the last 10 months to secure justice in this tragic case.

"The challenges and complexity of this case are well known, but the CPS and other partners have been working tirelessly to do all they can so that Anne Sacoolas faces the charge we have brought - causing death by dangerous driving.

"We know this is a very difficult process for the family, which is why we wanted to assure them personally that we continue to seek justice for them and for the public."

Now, since the UK Foreign Minister has repeatedly told the public and the Parliament that the accused did indeed have diplomatic immunity, a position which is apparently unchanged, the UK government is now taking two different positions on that critical matter. So far, it seems happy to live with that dissonance. 

In a side note, the family disclosed the record of an internal email from the Prime Minister's office in which some perceptive person exclaimed "this guy is bad!" in reference to the family's spokesman / grifter / Svengali / ringmaster and all-round hustler.

I like the exclamation point. Not merely "bad" but "bad!" So we know that No. 10 employs at least one staffer of discernment. 

Of course, the bad guy in question, instead of owning the bad guy label, immediately hid behind the parents, just as he did a few months back when the Northants Police called him out for misrepresenting something they told him about international notices.

“So to see that I am being referred to as a ‘bad guy’ is clearly a problem, but I do whatever the parents ask me to do, so any attack on me is an attack on these parents."

Actually, it's an attack on just him, and one that's thoroughly justified. 

Ahead of the meeting with CPS, the family announced that it has filed a civil suit for damages (here) in United States District Court, Eastern District of Virginia. That will ensure time-consuming back-and-forth actions on jurisdiction, etc., before the suit can be tried, if it ever is, as well as provide a good reason to further delay cooperation with any UK court action. 

The summary of the law suit, which you can read at the above link, contains the absolutely scurrilous allegation that the American driver did not call for assistance after the accident, but rather "left Dunn to suffer" and ultimately to die. In fact, as the driver's attorneys announced in a statement released to the public this busy week, she did in fact call the RAF Croughton police, who responded right away and assisted Dunn; a passing motorist she flagged down had already called for local emergency services. If anyone left Dunn to suffer and ultimately to die, it was the ambulance service, which took 43 minutes to arrive at the scene due to a dispatching mistake, and took two hours to get him to a hospital. The American driver stayed at the scene until police told her to go home. 

The last word for this week goes to the family spokesman, always as voluble as he is ignorant of international law. A few months back he was surprised to learn that international law is not made by the United Nations. Now, he's telling the news media "Harry Dunn's alleged killer could be tried on British soil by holding virtual proceedings in the British embassy in the US, according to his family’s lawyer." 

Only if you get your information about diplomatic immunity from movies like Lethal Weapon II is a foreign embassy the 'sovereign soil' of its country. In the real world, a foreign embassy is only a diplomatic premise which the host country recognizes as having certain privileges under international law, including legal inviolability. 'Sovereign soil' is a movie and TV trope. 

Anyway, regarding that proposal of a virtual trial as a way to work around the refusal of the USG to extradite its diplomatically immune persons abroad and subject them to real trials, it's a non-starter. The same international convention that makes them immune to the criminal jurisdiction of a host country also makes them immune to having to give testimony in the court of a host country. The SecState would have to waive immunity in order to allow a trial in which the accused could give testimony, and he appears to have made his refusal to waive immunity absolutely clear. 

Next up is a protest march on the U.S. Embassy in London on Tuesday, the first anniversary of the departure from the UK of the USG family member who was subsequently charged in the case. I do not anticipate any news being released then, since all the parties involved seem to have fired all their ammo last week.

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Update as of Monday, September 14. The rally-protest at the U.S. Embassy which had been planned for tomorrow is now cancelled. The family cited COVID-19 concerns as the reason.