The Dunn and Sacoolas diplomacy debate

Did Anne Sacoolas have diplomatic immunity when she reportedly drove into Harry Dunn last August, then left the country and avoided prosecution afterwards?

Sacoolas is the wife of a US intelligence officer in Britain and Dunn was a 19-year-old British motorcyclist that died after the crash in Northamptonshire last year.

Mrs Sacoolas's husband, Jonathan Sacoolas, was based at RAF Croughton, which was used from 1963 as a US communications relay station for radio traffic from embassies across Europe. This line of work granted him a level of diplomatic immunity. Both the UK and US government maintain that this immunity was extended to Mrs Sacoolas too.

Even though the work carried out at the RAF Croughton base was necessary as the main US embassy building in the capital was not able to do such work, officials warned of the dangers following increasing numbers of technical staff at the base. Some officials brought up concerns about staff being involved in road accidents because of the remote nature of the base.

The debate of Mrs Sacoolas's immunity claim once again rears its head as former Foreign Office minister, Tony Baldry, has spoken out. Baldry claims that the immunity deal reached in 1995 for the base and its staff was intended to exclude dangerous road incidents and no broader immunity was meant for the staff's family and dependants.

Baldry was one of the ministers who signed the deal back in the 1990s.

A former British ambassador in Serbia, Sir Ivor Roberts, mentions a letter of agreement between the Foreign Office and the US ambassador to Britain in 1995. It explains that the immunity available to Mr Sacoolas would not apply to acts outside the course of the duties of the base and its work. Therefore, if such protection under the circumstances of the incident with Harry Dunn did not apply to Mr Sacoolas, how could they apply to his wife, who had no official position at the base?

The conflict of interpretations from the UK and the US and Mrs Sacoolas's use of diplomatic powers have led to a judicial review from Harry Dunn's parents. The review will address if the government acted unlawfully in granting Mrs Sacoolas those powers and her subsequent avoidance of police prosecution.