Court date postponed for US citizen facing charges in teen’s death in UK

The U.K. court appearance of the wife of a U.S. diplomat for her alleged involvement in a fatal accident in the country has been postponed until next week.

Anne Sacoolas is accused of causing 19-year-old Harry Dunn’s death while driving on the wrong side of the road after a fatal road crash outside a U.S. military base in Northamptonshire in 2019, according to the BBC.

However, Sacoolas left the country and claimed diplomatic immunity when she was charged criminally in the U.K. in relation to the crash.

The U.S. citizen had been due to appear via video link at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday, but the hearing will now be postponed to allow “ongoing discussions” with the British Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to continue, the report added.

The CPS had previously authorized a charge of causing death by dangerous driving against Sacoolas. The U.S. State Department later rejected a request from the U.K. to extradite her. 

In December, when the U.K. court set the date for the hearing in the case, Sacoolas’s lawyers denied she would attend the Jan. 18 hearing and said that no such agreement had been made.

Arnold & Porter, the D.C.-based law firm representing Sacoolas, told The Hill in a statement, “While we have always been willing to discuss a virtual hearing, there is no agreement at this time.”

Dunn’s family reached a settlement in the civil case against Sacoolas in 2021, though the terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

Radd Seiger, a spokesman for Dunn’s family, told Sky News, “Harry’s family were obviously looking forward to the hearing on Tuesday so they hope an agreement will be reached sooner rather than later. It is vitally important for their mental health that justice and closure is achieved soon.”

The U.S.’s refusal to extradite Sacoolas to the U.K. threatened to cause a diplomatic rift between the two countries. 

Then-U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab condemned the U.S.’s decision in 2020 and said “we feel this amounts to a denial of justice,” and added that “we believe Anne Sacoolas should return to the U.K.”