Back to Harry Dunn, Inquest Wrap-Up: Empty Threats, and When's the Movie?

Finally, the official verdict on the Harry Dunn fatal road traffic accident of five years ago is in. 

Northamptonshire coroner Anne Pember has determined that he died of “injuries sustained during a head-on collision” with a car on the wrong side of the road. 

Yes. Surprising, I know. She really got down to the bottom of that mystery. Evidently the wheels of official inquiry grind exceedingly slow over there, but they grind exceedingly fine. Or something like that. 

The UK government's somewhat lame response is here.

 

Coroner Pember's bottom line was two recommendations ("prevention of future deaths notices") for the local ambulance service - who, if you ask me, got away extremely lightly - and one for the visiting forces at RAF Croughton that they provide some driver training. If I recall correctly from years-ago news stories, that training has already been instituted. 

Of course, all of that was just a backdrop for the latest news media hit by the Mum and her unscrupulous mouthpiece. Their act has gotten stale and predictable, but it still had a little more news value than I found in that skimpy coroner's report. 

Here's a good account of the coroner's conclusions and an even better account of the family's objections, in its entirety: Dunn family accuse US government of obstructing inquest after coroner criticism. 

The family of teenage motorcyclist Harry Dunn have said they are looking forward to working with “the next government to establish this public inquiry” after accusing the US government of “obstructing” their son’s inquest.  

Both representatives of the US embassy and driver Anne Sacoolas were absent from the four-day inquest – prompting spokesman Radd Seiger to say the US government’s position is that “lives of UK citizens like Harry ultimately do not matter”. 

Mr Seiger told the PA news agency that Labour had promised the family a public inquiry into how Sacoolas was able to cause Harry’s death and leave the country after diplomatic immunity was asserted on her behalf.  [TSB note: notice that we are not told exactly who in Labour promised him that. Don't believe it until someone with a name says so in public.]   

Northamptonshire coroner Anne Pember criticised the US government over a lack of training for diplomatic personnel at RAF Croughton before Mr Dunn’s death.

She recorded his death as being as a result of “injuries sustained during a head-on collision” with a car on the wrong side of the road. 

Ms Pember also issued three prevention of future death notices: two to the Health Secretary regarding drugs carried by paramedics and overstretched ambulance services, and one to the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence addressing the US’s training of drivers in the UK.

Speaking outside the court, Mr Dunn’s mother, Charlotte Charles, reiterated her “disgust” at Sacoolas’s and the US Embassy’s decision not to attend the inquest – labelling it “disrespectful” to her son.

She told reporters: “It further bolsters my opinion that they have no regard for myself or my family, our wider family – they just don’t care.”

Sacoolas 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.

She 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”. [TSB note: the remote court appearance was coordinated with the court in advance and done with the agreement of the Crown Prosecution Service. It interfered with nothing but the family's revenge fantasies.]

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb handed her an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months.

Addressing the US government’s role prior to Harry’s death, Mr Seiger told PA: “It was not enough for them to kill Harry. It wasn’t enough for them to then kick Harry’s family in their darkest hour and seek to deny and delay the justice that they were entitled to.

“As we have all seen this week their attitude and approach to keeping their British hosts safe has been laid to bare and they have positively obstructed the Coroner’s inquiry and deprived the family of the answers they were entitled to as to why no-one has ever addressed the issue of safety of UK citizens.

“The next question is why have the UK governments over the years been happy to sit on the sidelines watching this scandal unfold.

“This Tory government have refused to get involved. Labour have promised us a public inquiry into the way we were treated and the failure on the part of both governments over the decades to address the issue of safety which has led to thousands of people being killed and seriously injured.”

He continued: “The UK government have also now seen how the US government treats our courts and judges.

“The question for the next British government is are they just going to stand by and let the Americans continue to treat us all and our lives with such contempt.

“The US ambassador at the time of Harry’s death was Woody Johnson. He told the UK government after he died that there were far more important things than Harry’s life.

“That is the American government’s position. The lives of UK citizens like Harry ultimately do not matter. 

“We won’t let them get away with it and we look forward to working with the next government to establish this public inquiry.

“We were all horrified as a nation to see how the US government treated Harry’s family. This must never happen again.

“The American national anthem ends land of the free home of the brave. They haven’t demonstrated an ounce of bravery at all preferring to run, hide and obstruct.”

Obstructing? By the American driver providing her testimony without the spectacle the family wanted? That's not obstructing, but more like not playing the other side's game. 

I like how Seiger played his pitchman role and rattled off that long string of complaints and empty threats. It’s the same tune he’s been playing for five years now, so he ought to have it down pat. 

Which makes we wonder, yet again, why he and the Mum don’t go large by writing an as-told-to book, or better yet, a movie deal? They must have more than enough friendly journalists who could help with that by writing a book or movie treatment. 

And then, yet again, I wonder whether the family's Rasputin might be such a loose cannon that he's spoiling the deal for any publisher or studio that's interested in doing business with the family. 

Recall that the first legal firm they engaged in their U.S. civil suit left the case after expressing mysterious concerns about ethical conflicts. The most likely suspect for those ethical conflicts was the pitchman himself, or so I suspected. 

Serious money could be involved in a book and/or movie deal, and that brings serious oversight by serious lawyers. It could just be that they've decided to keep away from this deal so long as the family remains inseparable from their spokesman.