Boris Johnson calls for 'justice to be done' for Harry Dunn during Mike Pompeo meeting
Boris Johnson has pressed for "justice" for Harry Dunn
3 min read
Boris Johnson has pressed for "justice to be done" for Harry Dunn during a face-to-face meeting with Mike Pompeo.
The Prime Minister told the US Secretary of State there was a "strong feeling" among the public that justice had not been delivered over the death of the teen as he pressed for the US to take further action.
The 19-year-old motorcyclist was killed in a collision with a US diplomat's wife - Anne Sacoolas - who later left the UK under diplomatic immunity, sparking an international row.
But requests to extradite Ms Sacoolas back to the UK were refused by US officials in January, with a spokesperson for the State Department saying the decision was "final".
A Number 10 spokesperson said Mr Johnson and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab had urged Mr Pompeo to reconsider the decision during a meeting in London on Tuesday.
"The Prime Minister reiterated the need for justice to be done for Harry Dunn and his family," they said.
"He said there was a strong feeling among the poeple of the UK that justice must be delivered.
"The PM has raised this with the President and with the Secretary of State. He and the Foreign Secretary are very clear that we want to see Anne Sacoolas face justice in the UK and the PM reiterated that."
Charlotte Charles, the mother of Harry Dunn, said ahead of the meeting that she felt her family had been "shoved under the carpet" by the Government.
Speaking outside Downing Street, she said: "When you lose someone under circumstances like that in this country you expect to be looked after by your own government. We've not been looked after, we’ve been shoved under the carpet."
Her comments came after Mr Raab said on Sunday the US decision to refuse the extradition request for Ms Sacoolas amounted to a "denial of justice".
"We're on the family's side, we've made that clear all along," he told Sky's Sophy Ridge.
"There's a denial of justice here, there is an extradition request that is outstanding and we have called on Anne Sacoolas to return and our American partners to facilitate that, we've done that consistently throughout."
He added: "There's no measures that I think we could credibly, realistically take which is somehow going to force the US or indeed Anne Sacoolas to comply with this.
"But I want to be realistic because I don’t want to raise expectations that are going to be dashed, but we have at every level raised this."
But Ms Charles hit out at Mr Raab, saying his attempts to deal with the case had made him look like a "child in an adult world".
"We've heard Dominic Raab say on so many occasions that he is raising Harry with the US, but 'raising it', we still don’t understand what that means," she added.
"Yesterday the interview that we saw with him [with Sophie Ridge on Sky News] he just looked like a child in an adult world, he didn’t look like that strong member of our government that was going to get Anne Sacoolas back."
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