Boris Johnson has urged Anne Sacoolas, the wife of a US diplomat being treated as a suspect in a fatal crash investigation, to return to the UK.
Sacoolas left the UK, despite telling police officers she had no intention of leaving the country, claiming diplomatic immunity from police inquiries into a crash on August 27 which killed 19-year-old Harry Dunn.
Dunn, of Charlton, Banbury, was killed on August 27 when his motorcycle crashed into a car near RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire, a military base used by the US Air Force.
The prime minister has now said he is willing to escalate the ongoing row about Sacoolas’ absence from proceedings with the White House directly, should negotiations fail to ensure her return to the UK.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to a hospital in Watford, the prime minister said: “I think everybody’s sympathies are very much with the family of Harry Dunn, and our condolences to them for their tragic loss.
“I must answer you directly: I do not think that it can be right to use the process of diplomatic immunity for this type of purpose.
“And I hope that Anne Sacoolas will come back and will engage properly with the processes of law as they are carried out in this country.”
Diplomatic immunity exempts diplomats from arrest or detention in their host countries, and it is up to the country that employs them to waive it if necessary.
The CPS has said immunity does not apply to a diplomat’s dependants, such as their family based outside of London. However it is understood that some diplomatic staff and their spouses based outside the capital can obtain immunity.
Johnson said the calls for Sacoolas’ return had been “raised or are raising today with the American ambassador here in the UK and I hope it will be resolved very shortly.
“And to anticipate a question you might want to raise, if we can’t resolve it then of course I will be raising it myself personally with the White House.”