The parents of a 19-year-old British biker allegedly killed by a U.S. diplomat’s wife in a crash said they turned down an offer to meet the woman during a visit with President Donald Trump at the White House.
After the brief White House visit on Tuesday, Charlotte Charles, the grieving mother of Harry Dunn, told reporters that she was “a bit shocked” when she learned from the president that Anne Sacoolas was in the next room.
42-year-old Anne Sacoolas, a mother of three and the wife of an American official, left the United Kingdom shortly after the Aug. 27 fatal crash near a Royal Air Force base where her husband worked. Harry Dunn, 19, died in the collision between his motorcycle and the car driven by Sacoolas, who reportedly pulled out of the base on the wrong side of the road, unaware of the country’s left-driving rules.
“We made it very clear that, as we’ve said all along, we will meet with her and we would still love to meet with her but it has to be on our terms and on U.K. soil,” said the mother, who traveled with husband to America this week to urge Sacoolas to return for a police investigation. “She needs to come back and face the justice system.”
The couple praised President Trump for being compassionate and sincere, noting that he was “quite respondent” when he held the mother’s hand.
She described her son as someone who would “always stand up for his rights when he knew he was in the right,” and therefore he would have been proud of his parents taking his case directly to the U.S. President.
“I feel like we’ve got a little bit of progress,” said Charlotte, when asked if she felt they had made progress since arriving in America. “We didn’t get the answers that we wanted. They couldn’t tell us who made the decision to let her come back to the U.S.”
The Guardians reported that the couple will remain in the country for a few more days to ask some questions of the British foreign office.
