{"id":15793,"date":"2019-10-16T05:10:54","date_gmt":"2019-10-16T09:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=15793"},"modified":"2019-10-16T05:10:54","modified_gmt":"2019-10-16T09:10:54","slug":"harry-dunns-parents-reject-trump-offer-to-meet-suspect-at-white-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2019\/10\/16\/harry-dunns-parents-reject-trump-offer-to-meet-suspect-at-white-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Dunn&#8217;s parents reject Trump offer to meet suspect at White House"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Harry Dunn&#8217;s parents have rejected the chance to meet the suspect in their son&#8217;s crash death after Donald Trump dropped the &#8220;bombshell&#8221; that she was in the room next door at the White House.<\/p>\n<p>Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn felt &#8220;a little ambushed&#8221; by the offer made by the US president.<\/p>\n<p>Anne Sacoolas, 42, returned to the United States days after the crash which killed 19-year-old Harry.<\/p>\n<p>Harry&#8217;s parents said they wanted to meet Mrs Sacoolas in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>The president said Mrs Sacoolas was in an adjoining room but they refused to see her, saying the conditions were not right.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Trump was sympathetic but did not agree to Mrs Sacoolas&#8217; UK return, Harry&#8217;s parents said.<\/p>\n<p>Family spokesman Radd Seiger described the White House meeting as &#8220;absolutely extraordinary&#8221; and &#8220;unprecedented&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Harry died near RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire on 27 August when his motorcycle was in a crash with a Volvo.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Sacoolas &#8211; who is reportedly married to a US intelligence official who was stationed at RAF Croughton &#8211; was interviewed by police but then returned to the United States after claiming diplomatic immunity.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_15794\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15794\" style=\"width: 572px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Charlotte-Charles.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15794\" src=\"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Charlotte-Charles.jpg\" alt=\"Charlotte Charles\" width=\"572\" height=\"358\" srcset=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Charlotte-Charles.jpg 572w, https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Charlotte-Charles-300x188.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 572px) 100vw, 572px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-15794\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Harry Dunn&#8217;s parent Charlotte Charles said they were told by the president he would &#8220;try to push this from a different angle&#8221;<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Ms Charles said after the White House meeting: &#8220;When [President Trump] held my hand, I gripped it a lot tighter and I was honest with him and just said&#8230; &#8216;if it was your son you would be doing the same as us&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He actually gripped my hand a little bit tighter and said &#8216;yes I would be&#8217;. And that&#8217;s when he said he would try and look at this from a different angle.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I can only hope that he was sincere enough to consider doing that for us.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s the one in control here, but we&#8217;re the ones in control of our situation as much as we can be &#8211; we still want justice for Harry and we will take it as far as we possibly can to ensure that that&#8217;s done.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We do feel that we have done as much as we can at the moment.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Seiger told BBC Breakfast: &#8220;After quite sincere and warm condolences [President Trump] got down to business and said he had Mrs Sacoolas in the next room.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I looked to my side and I saw at least three photographers ready to almost do a press call.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He insisted the meeting should take place in the UK, in the presence of therapists and mediators, but &#8220;certainly now now and certainly not in the White House in front of a bank of photographers&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t just throw open the circus doors with the cameras,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>US national security adviser Robert O&#8217;Brien told the family during the meeting that Mrs Sacoolas &#8220;was never coming back&#8221; to the UK, Mr Seiger said.<\/p>\n<p>US national security adviser Robert O&#8217;Brien told the family during the meeting that Mrs Sacoolas &#8220;was never coming back&#8221; to the UK, Mr Seiger said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/16E87\/production\/_109213839_diplomatwife.jpg\" alt=\"Anne Sacoolas\" width=\"976\" height=\"949\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><\/span><figcaption class=\"media-caption\"><span class=\"media-caption__text\">Anne Sacoolas, pictured on her wedding day in 2003 (Image: Aiken Standard Archive)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Dunn said of turning down the chance to meet Mrs Sacoolas at the White House: &#8220;We weren&#8217;t ready to meet her &#8211; it would have been too rushed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s not what we wanted &#8211; we wanted a meeting with her in the UK.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But he added that the trip to the White House &#8220;didn&#8217;t feel like a stunt&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think the president was very graceful and spoke very well to us.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He listened to Charlotte very well, she spoke excellently to him and he was very understanding.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I genuinely do think he will look to resolve this in a way that will help us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Over the weekend, Mrs Sacoolas broke her silence over Mr Dunn&#8217;s death in a letter via her lawyers.<\/p>\n<p>In it she said she wanted to meet his parents &#8220;so that she can express her deepest sympathies and apologies for this tragic accident&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Mrs Sacoolas was said to be covered by diplomatic immunity as the spouse of a US intelligence official, though that protection is now in dispute.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-england-northamptonshire-50064595\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">Harry Dunn&#8217;s parents have rejected the chance to meet the suspect in their son&#8217;s crash death after Donald Trump dropped the &#8220;bombshell&#8221; that she was in the room next door at the White House. Charlotte <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2019\/10\/16\/harry-dunns-parents-reject-trump-offer-to-meet-suspect-at-white-house\/\" title=\"Harry Dunn&#8217;s parents reject Trump offer to meet suspect at White House\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,3],"tags":[6673,285,6640,4789],"class_list":{"0":"post-15793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-uk","9":"category-usa","10":"tag-anne-sacoolas","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-harry-dunn","13":"tag-northamptonshire","14":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15795,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15793\/revisions\/15795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}