Parents Seek Truth Of Teen Son's Death In Suit Against NoVA Woman

ALEXANDRIA, VA — A U.S. federal judge questioned a British family's reluctance to settle a lawsuit it brought against a U.S. intelligence agency employee over the death of their son on a road near a military base in England.

The family of a Harry Dunn, 19, who was struck and killed on his motorcycle by the U.S. intelligence agency employee, filed a lawsuit last September in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Alexandria. In the complaint, the family requested a trial by jury in the case.

The intelligence agency employee, Anne Sacoolas, drove head-on into Dunn’s motorcycle in August 2019 near RAF Croughton, a military base in England known to be used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Sacoolas and her husband left the country soon after Dunn’s death and the U.S. invoked diplomatic immunity on their behalf, prompting an outcry in Britain. Dunn’s family then filed the lawsuit.

Prior to leaving for their three-year assignment at RAF Croughton, the Sacoolas family reportedly lived in Vienna. Upon returning to the U.S., Sacoolas and her family reportedly rented a house in Herndon.

At a court hearing last Friday, U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III asked why the Dunn family wanted the case to continue moving forward instead of agreeing to a settlement with Sacoolas.

“To some extent, they feel like this is some small substitute for the justice they weren’t able to get in the U.K.,” the Dunn’s lawyer said.

The Dunn family's lawyer also indicated the family may be interested in more than a monetary settlement.

Ellis countered that civil litigation is limited in what it can accomplish. “This is a terrible tragedy, but nothing we do in this courtroom is going to bring back that young man,” he said. “A wrongful death case is not an opportunity for revenge.”

Dunn's parents, Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, have "enormous respect" for Ellis "as one of the senior judges on the circuit and are grateful to him for the very fair approach he has taken to their case to date," Radd Seiger, adviser and spokesperson for the Dunn family, said in a statement Tuesday.

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Seiger explained the lawsuit brought by the Dunn family in U.S. District Court is unique, with Harry Dunn's parents finding themselves "deprived of their basic right to have the person responsible for Harry’s death held to account."

The family filed the lawsuit in the U.S., "not only to claim for civil damages, but also to get to the truth," Seiger said. "This civil claim, for all we know, may represent their only opportunity for justice. To this day, they still do not know the full circumstances of how Harry came to die and we are now nearly two years on from his death."

On Aug. 27, 2019, Sacoolas was driving a British Volvo SUV on the wrong side of the road when she crashed into Dunn.

"One of the reasons therefore that the case has not settled yet, is the parents' determination to attend Mrs Sacoolas’ deposition so that they can hear a first-hand account of what happened that night. That is their right and who can blame them," Seiger said.

Sacoolas' deposition in the civil case is scheduled for Aug. 24. The Dunn family's lawyers will have their first chance to ask her questions about what happened on Aug. 27, 2019 when she crashed into Harry Dunn. Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, who were deposed in the civil proceeding in early July, are planning to attend Sacoolas' deposition.

At last Friday's hearing in the case, the judge also tied his personal experience to how Sacoolas was driving on the wrong side of the road in England when she crashed into and killed Dunn.

The Dunn family lawyer told the judge Sacoolas had already been in England for several weeks by the time of the crash and should have been used to driving on the left side of the road.

Ellis admitted to driving on the wrong side of the road in the time he lived in England. The habit of driving on the right side of the road is a difficult one to break, the judge said. “I lived in England for more than a year,” he said. “Even at the end of a year, I was often on the wrong side of the road.”

Seiger said the family does not believe Ellis's comments were intended to "excuse it in any way," referring to how Sacoolas was driving on Aug. 27, 2019.

"President Trump made similar comments that he too has driven on the wrong side of the road in England," Seiger said. "The simple fact is that none of that detracts from the fact that it is against the law to drive on the wrong side of the road in the UK, particularly where it leads to loss of life or serious injury, and this is a matter for no one to consider other than the British prosecuting authorities."

This story includes reporting from the Associated Press.

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