An independent review has sharply criticized the police in Britain over their handling of a 2019 road collision between an American driver and a teenage British motorcyclist in which the teenager died and the American subsequently fled the country on a claim of diplomatic immunity.
The review, a 118-page report published on Wednesday, said that the police should have arrested the American driver, Anne Sacoolas, at the scene and that officers later mishandled forensic evidence. It also found fault with a senior officer’s social media posts and public remarks about the case, and with how officers interacted with the parents of the 19-year-old victim, Harry Dunn.
In publicizing the findings on Wednesday, the Northamptonshire Police, the force that was responsible for the case, apologized to Mr. Dunn’s parents, Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn.
“The picture which emerges is one of a force which has failed the family on a number of fronts,” Emma James, the Northamptonshire Police’s head of protective services, said in a statement.
The fatal crash occurred as Ms. Sacoolas, a U.S. State Department employee whose husband worked for the American government at a British military base, was driving on the wrong side of the road near the village of Croughton, in central England, in August 2019. Mr. Dunn, whom her car struck, died later in a hospital.
The episode caused international friction when Ms. Sacoolas left Britain three weeks after the crash, claiming diplomatic immunity. Britain issued an extradition request for her return, but the U.S. government rejected it, arguing in a statement at the time that honoring it “would render the invocation of diplomatic immunity a practical nullity and would set an extraordinarily troubling precedent.”
That response infuriated many in Britain, and Boris Johnson, then the prime minister, demanded her return. President Trump then tried unsuccessfully to stage a White House meeting between Mr. Dunn’s grieving parents and Ms. Sacoolas.
According to the independent police review, “What was an investigation into a fatal road traffic collision became a diplomatic issue with various notable politicians being involved.”
The U.S. Embassy in London referred questions to the State Department.
Among the report’s criticisms was how the police had responded to Ms. Sacoolas at the scene of the crash. Officers allowed Ms. Sacoolas, who was with her two young children, to leave the site even as she repeatedly said that the collision was her fault, the review said, arguing that in such a serious crash, officers “could and should” arrest the suspect.
It found that the police mishandled the collection of Mr. Dunn’s clothes from the crash site, and then did not discover until last year that the clothing contained DNA evidence from him.
The review also criticized a senior officer’s social media posts and remarks to news outlets as insensitive, and it found fault with how the police had interacted with Mr. Dunn’s parents, including not informing them that Ms. Sacoolas had left the country.
For Mr. Dunn’s family, the review confirmed that the authorities had failed them, Ms. Charles, his mother, said in a statement.
“Harry was left to die on the roadside,” she said. “Sacoolas was not arrested, even though the police had every power to do so.”
In December 2019, British prosecutors charged Ms. Sacoolas in absentia with causing death by dangerous driving. Nearly three years later, she appeared in court via video link and pleaded guilty to careless driving. A judge handed down an eight-month suspended sentence, allowing Ms. Sacoolas to avoid serving time in prison.
After their son’s death, Mr. Dunn’s parents mounted a public campaign to hold Ms. Sacoolas accountable, including traveling to Washington. This month, King Charles III honored Ms. Charles for her role in promoting road safety.
Lynsey Chutel is a Times reporter based in London who covers breaking news in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.
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