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Harry Dunn's mum brands disgraced police chief ‘vindictive lying little man’ for role in son's case
18 June 2025, 00:02 | Updated: 18 June 2025, 10:32
Harry Dunn’s mother has delivered a blistering rebuke to disgraced former Northamptonshire Police Chief Constable Nick Adderley, calling him a “vindictive, lying little man” whose actions during the investigation into her son’s death only deepened the family’s trauma.
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Speaking to LBC, Charlotte Charles said: Being our Chief of Police in Northamptonshire, you should have faith in that person, and you should feel you can trust that person.
"From the outset, as with many other things with our case and our campaign, there was just something in the pit of my stomach that told me not to trust… my spider senses, for want of a better word, my unease throughout the whole of my body when I was around him or near him.
"When we had this report released, it just confirmed to me that I was right and that I should never, ever mistrust a mother's instinct. He's let us down on so many issues. He's let us down on being able to trust in what we should have been able to trust in.
She added: “We will never forgive him for launching personal attacks on our neighbour and spokesperson Radd Seiger—the one human being in our tragedy who had the courage to stand up and help us when the police and our own government refused to do that.
"I’m glad he is long gone and will never be able to police again. He’s a nasty, vindictive, lying little man, and we are all safer now that he has gone.”
Her comments follow the release of a scathing 118-page independent review, commissioned by Chief Constable Ivan Balhatchet, which lays bare catastrophic leadership failures by Adderley during the force’s handling of Harry Dunn’s case.
The report concludes that Adderley’s actions caused “detrimental” harm to the investigation and inflicted further distress on Harry’s grieving family—already navigating an international legal storm following the 2019 death of their son.
Harry, 19, was killed when his motorbike was struck by a car driven on the wrong side of the road by Anne Sacoolas, the wife of a US intelligence official, near RAF Croughton.
Despite the gravity of the incident, Sacoolas was not arrested at the scene and was allowed to leave the UK under diplomatic immunity, sparking a years-long justice campaign by his family.
While Sacoolas ultimately pleaded guilty to causing death by careless driving and received a suspended sentence, the review reveals how failings in leadership—particularly from Adderley—compounded the family's suffering.
In one of the most damning sections, the report details how Adderley made “erroneous statements” about Sacoolas’s diplomatic immunity—wrongly suggesting she could waive it herself, despite it being solely the prerogative of the US government.
The Foreign Office was forced to step in and request Adderley cease making inaccurate claims.
His comments, delivered without fact-checking from the senior investigating officer, were labelled not only misleading but severely damaging.
Danielle Stone, the Northamptonshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner, also told LBC she was “really angry” after reading the report:
“In all our dealings with victims and witnesses, we need to put them first—we need to centre them,” she said.
“And his range of behaviours around that was so unacceptable. I don’t understand it. Why would anybody take to Twitter, for example, with something so profoundly awful as a family losing their child? Completely unacceptable.”
Ms Stone added: “His actions were incredibly unhelpful and added to the distress of the family. In terms of leadership, he undermined his own staff.
"He didn’t put in place the command structure that was needed. The investigators, who came out really well in the report, were completely undermined because he went behind their backs. He excluded them from contact with the family and undermined their efforts to build trust.”
The review also condemned Adderley for failing to properly document key meetings and decisions, and for establishing a Gold command structure that was “not fit for purpose.”
His decision to bypass proper channels—communicating directly with the family’s spokesman Radd Seiger via social media without informing the investigation team—compounded the breakdown of trust between the force and Harry’s family.
This erosion of trust, the review concludes, was avoidable.
One particularly shocking example cited in the report is a tweet from Adderley dismissing the family’s legal action in the US with the words: “How sad but how predictable.”
Beyond Adderley’s conduct, the report highlights multiple investigative failures.
Police at the scene did not arrest Sacoolas—even though, at the time, there was no confirmation of her immunity.
Officers prioritised her welfare over investigative necessity, despite her having struck and killed a teenager.
Vital evidence, including Harry’s clothing, was mishandled and left in storage with biological matter still present years later.
The force has since issued a formal apology. Assistant Chief Constable Emma James said: "On behalf of Northamptonshire Police, I want to apologise to Harry’s family for what is now clear was a failure on our part to do the very best for the victim in this case and for the family who fought tirelessly in the years that followed.”
Harry’s mother welcomed the transparency of the report but emphasised that lessons must be learned nationwide.
“No family should ever again be treated the way we were,” she told LBC. “But today, at least, the truth of the failings of Adderley and the force he ‘led’ has been recognised.”
The review concludes with 38 recommendations, including the need for a national rethink on how police forces handle incidents involving foreign nationals and serious road collisions.
