Impact of pro bono: working towards justice for a grieving family

What did the work involve?

Harry Dunn was killed in a road accident involving the wife of a member of the US mission based at RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire, who was driving on the wrong side of the road.

The initial legal proceedings involved a judicial review of the decision that she had diplomatic immunity.

A&O Shearman had overall conduct on the case and got involved when the judicial review went to the Court of Appeal.

They led on the subsequent coroner’s inquest with Patrick Gibbs KC as lead counsel.

The inquest concluded that Harry died due to a traffic accident and made recommendations in three prevention of future deaths reports.

Two of the recommendations were to the secretary of state for health and social care, highlighting the issue of ambulance response times and the ability of paramedics to provide certain types of pain relief.

The third was to the UK authorities who worked with American personnel on military bases in the UK, to recommend that more driver and road safety training be provided.

What was the impact?

The work helped obtain an outcome for the Dunn family, which went some way towards their goal of ensuring that what happened to Harry would not happen again.

The inquest, alongside the media campaign run by the family, has ensured that the issue of road safety and driver training to American drivers operating outside of RAF bases was examined closely by the authorities.

The Department of Transport has undertaken a comprehensive road safety review outside of American bases in the UK and it is hoped that further action will be taken.