No 10 denies PM asked Trump to set up Anne Sacoolas meeting in US

Downing Street has denied that Boris Johnson asked Donald Trump to organise a meeting between the family of Harry Dunn and the wife of an American diplomat who has admitted she was driving on the wrong side of the road before the teenager died in a collision.

At a briefing on Wednesday, the US president said he had arranged the widely criticised meeting at the suggestion of the British prime minister.

But No 10 said Johnson was not aware of Trump’s plans to set up a meeting between Harry Dunn’s family and Anne Sacoolas.

“The PM and the president spoke last Wednesday and the PM asked the president to do all he could to resolve the issue,” a No 10 spokeswoman said.

“During the conversation, the president raised a possibility of a meeting with Anne Sacoolas at the White House, but at that stage we weren’t aware of any plans for the family to go [to the US], so it wasn’t discussed further.”

The family, who have been in New York this week to raise awareness of the case, were called by the White House and asked out of the blue to travel to Washington DC, but were not told they would meet the president or that Sacoolas would also be in the building and ready to meet them. A photo opportunity was being arranged by the White House press team.

The family resisted Trump’s pressure to have a meeting, saying it was not appropriate to do so at such short notice and they wanted Sacoolas to return to the UK to help with the police investigation.

Lawyers for the Dunn family accused the White House of being directed by the national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, who they described as a “nincompoop”. More private efforts at arranging a meeting are under way.