Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 9 10

Original poster

To think American diplomatic immunity...

240 replies

MT2017 · 07/10/2019 16:02

...should not apply here.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-49961679

What's worse is that she was advised to leave by the American Embassy!

OP posts:

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 18:39

OrchidInTheSun

So. You have this accident, and presumably you’re scared and probably in shock and so is your child. When the police arrive you tell the truth. In the meantime you contact your employer (the Embassy) and they say something like: “Ma’am, you need to return to your hotel immediately, collect your passport and essential belongings for you and your son. We’re sending a car to take you the airport. You can choose not to take this advice but we must warn you that we will not be able to get you out of the country once you have been arrested. Should you choose not to follow it, the President will have no option but to waive your immunity. Oh and you will be paying for your own legal advice.”

Or whatever.

You’re a braver woman than I am.

Genevieva · 07/10/2019 18:41

Diplomatic immunity is there to protect diplomats and their families from diplomatic or political issues between countries. It is not meant to cause diplomatic crises. I think that, one way or other, this woman will face justice. I also think she would be wise to come back to the UK, because we are far more lenient when it comes to sentencing. We seem to be particularly generous to the convicted criminal in cases of accidental death as a result of dangerous driving.

OrchidInTheSun · 07/10/2019 18:44

The Embassy is not her employer @seaweedandmarchingbands. She is a trailing spouse.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 18:45

OrchidInTheSun

That’s a technicality, isn’t it? She is still covered by his DI. She would still be dealing with the Embassy. Etc.

UniversalAunt · 07/10/2019 18:55

My assumptions here... if her husband is an Accredited Diplomat & he is on a US military base here, prolly he is senior level military or security services. So, once her name is in the public domain, his service overseas is compromised so he (& his family) may have been immediately recalled.

Were this matter not so serious, I would suggest a mid-Atlantic trade of Prince Andrew for this woman so that she could reasonably stand trial here & PA could answer any questions the US authorities have about his associations with JeffreyE & his chums. I understand that the US authorities have been asking to interview PA but requests have been denied.

ProfessorSlocombe · 07/10/2019 18:57

The American embassy (in London) used to be notorious for refusing to pay any parking tickets of congestion zone fees. Didn’t wanna, can’t make me is the attitude.

Foreign embassies and diplomats are exempt from the taxes of the localities where they are situated - this is a long established principle.

The US claim the congestion charge is a tax, so they are exempt, and you can't serve papers on them for debt under the Vienna Convention.

(That said, if the congestion charge were enforced with barriers and gates, they would have no choice but to pay, and then work out how to claim it back from HMG).

SerendipityJane · 07/10/2019 18:58

Speaking of extraditions, hows Assange these days ?

WeshMaGueule · 07/10/2019 18:59

The Zairean ambassador to France killed two kids on a zebra crossing while speeding a few years back. Nothing happened to him.

tentative3 · 07/10/2019 19:00

Will the family be able to bring a civil claim in the US or will she be protected there too?

I agree that whatever the moral arguments she is never going to face justice here. I also agree that a lot of us would have done exactly the same. And I also agree that it's hypocrisy for the US to ask for DI to be waived when the issue is on their soil.

Allington · 07/10/2019 19:01

The US doesn't waive DI. Not even in the notorious case of one of their 'people' sexually abusing a child. Being a US citizen with DI exempts you from all legal consequences.

OrchidInTheSun · 07/10/2019 19:02

Is it? She is not a US state employee.

I don't think it's fair or legitimate use of the Vienna Convention. It wasn't intended to allow people to run citizens of a country over and just walk (fly) away.

Perhaps some British diplomat should run her kid over and see how she feels about them just getting on a plane.

ProfessorSlocombe · 07/10/2019 19:02

Will the family be able to bring a civil claim in the US or will she be protected there too?

Good question ... it's not as easy as if it were as US citizen trying to bring a civil claim in the UK, I know that much.

SerendipityJane · 07/10/2019 19:04

I don't think it's fair or legitimate use of the Vienna Convention. It wasn't intended to allow people to run citizens of a country over and just walk (fly) away.

Well, as noted upthread, we had to let an entire embassyful of Libyans go after one of them machine gunned WPC Yvonne Fletcher down in 1986.

WeshMaGueule · 07/10/2019 19:05

Oh hang on I take it back, I was remembering wrongly. The Zairean ambassador renounced his immunity and went to prison.

WeshMaGueule · 07/10/2019 19:06

How would they have proved who pulled the trigger in the Yvonne Fletcher case though?

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 19:08

I don't think it's fair or legitimate use of the Vienna Convention. It wasn't intended to allow people to run citizens of a country over and just walk (fly) away.

It doesn’t matter whether she is employed by them or not. It doesn’t matter whether this is fair or not. The law says she can leave. We ratified the law.

Rivkka · 07/10/2019 19:08

The posters saying they would do the same, surely you couldn't look at yourself in the mirror everyday if you did?

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 19:10

The posters saying they would do the same, surely you couldn't look at yourself in the mirror everyday if you did?

Well, that’s a metaphor, isn’t it? I would definitely be able to look at myself in a mirror. My conscience would be deeply troubled, but then it would be whether I stayed or not. My child would be my first priority, if I am being 100% honest. I would do whatever I could to avoid leaving her without a mum for ten years, or however many I thought I would have to serve. I wish I were as saintly as some on here, but I’m not.

LordProfFekkoThePenguinPhD · 07/10/2019 19:12

I couldn’t run - even if I worried about my kids I couldn’t show them that their mum was a coward.

Besides DH and DBIL are two of the most ‘do the right thing’ people you could ever meet and would hog-tie and deliver me to the local police station if I tried to bolt.

OrchidInTheSun · 07/10/2019 19:13

Perhaps the law should be looked at again then. Because I'm sure it wasn't designed to allow embassy staff and their families behave in a really careless way, harming and killing the citizens of the country to which they are assigned. And then shrugging off those deaths and injuries, returning to base and then being reassigned to some other hapless country.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 19:15

I couldn’t run - even if I worried about my kids I couldn’t show them that their mum was a coward.

I’m not sure it’s cowardice to follow the legal advice you are given and the law. Is it cowardice when people go to the British consul when they’re caught with cannabis in Thailand and they’re looking at five years?

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 19:15

Perhaps the law should be looked at again then

Perhaps so.

UnderhandedBarbieDoll · 07/10/2019 19:18

Well in these type of cases where there is virtually no hope of justice being done, I can understand how people can be tempted to take the law into their own hands.

You run over someone's child and.... That's that?

If this isn't a situation where the law is an ass, I don't know what is, and any right minded person would agree that this isn't in the spirit of what DI is meant to protect.

This should be the cause of a major diplomatic scuffle. Why isn't it?

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 19:19

This should be the cause of a major diplomatic scuffle. Why isn't it?

Because we knew when we met her in. The Americans will have pointed this out and they will have been right.

seaweedandmarchingbands · 07/10/2019 19:19

*let

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6 ··· 9 10

Swipe left for the next trending thread