A Personal Experience…

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

As I sit in my Kailyard I wonder often about the future.

I once had a complaint about a commercial organization which I took to the governing body in the UK. I was angry at how they behaved, and I wanted something done about it.

They asked me what I wanted done.

I wanted something. I did not really know what.

The governing body suggested some form of compensation as I was likely to get an apology and that might not make me the happiest guy on the planet – after all saying sorry is unlikely to cost them too much grief.

I wanted them to feel my grief.

I asked for compensation and in as subsequent discussion with one of the governing body advisors they told me that companies having to give out money is often the only way to make them behave – they hated paying out.

I won, got compensation and an apology.

I felt a bit sad that I could not bring them to their knees and make them pay by being destroyed by my complaint but had to take that dissatisfaction and deal with it in the context of what was a slightly trivial matter in the scheme of things.

I was reminded of this when I saw the partial resolution in the case of Harry Dunn in the States. I wrote about this a few months ago for Ringside Report as an American citizen had driven, ostensibly, on the wrong side of the road and killed a 19 year old local lad who was out on his motorbike.

The alleged guilty party had then fled the country with the US authorities of the time, backing her claim that she had diplomatic immunity and should not be prosecuted for her apparent crime. The community round the RAF Croughton airbase were outraged, the parents of the young man devastated; relations between the US and the UK were falling between frosty and fractured.

Harry Dunn, the deceased young lad, has had his family pursue a civil case in the US court against Anne Sacoolas, the US resident driver and a resolution has been reached. There have been no details released but I think it is safe to say that the resolution has been financial. Sources behind the family claim it as a milestone however it is not the final resolution of the case.
This part of the campaign, they claim, is “behind them.”

Justice is still some way off.

For many of us in the UK it sounds a little unseemly that anyone would seek to profit from the death of a loved one but the fact is that if they only have a financial settlement to pursue and they win that, then the next steps to justice may well be paved, not with gold, but with an admission and a weapon that could finally force people to come to court rather than fight from behind a legal shield.

Sacoolas was backed by the previous US administration whilst the “fact” she was working in an “intelligence capacity” has been challenged before by those seeking justice but the reality remains that if the US authorities were keeping up this tale, it was difficult to knock down. If she had immunity, how that could be breached may well be nigh impossible. The resolution does damage that defense and perhaps we are getting closer to what could be described as the semblance of justice. What comes next intrigues.

We shall have a long-awaited inquest and criminal action may follow. The British Government have continued to support the Dunn family and the cooling of support from the US Government following regime change has accompanied the discovery of a beating heart at the center of its dealings with the world augur well.

A view from the new Kailyard or, how you look over there, from over here…

(kailyard n. a genre of sentimental Scottish literature turned into effective invective comment from one Donald worth reading…)

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