Harry Dunn’s family have been given the go-ahead to proceed with a civil claim for damages in the US against both the teenager’s alleged killer and her husband. A judge’s ruling in the Alexandria district court in Virginia has taken the Dunn family a step closer to a legal showdown with suspect Anne Sacoolas, 18 months on from the 19-year-old’s death in the UK. The US government asserted diplomatic immunity on behalf of Sacoolas, 43, following the road crash which killed the motorcyclist outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire in August 2019. She was charged with causing death by dangerous driving, but an extradition request submitted by the Home Office was rejected by the US state department in January last year. On Wednesday, judge Thomas Ellis ruled the Dunn family could proceed with their civil claim against both Sacoolas and her husband - allowing a claim of “vicarious liability” to be brought against him. The Virginia state law of vicarious liability means Mr Sacoolas could be liable for the teenager’s death by allowing his wife to use the car which killed him. The judge told Sacoolas’s lawyer, John McGavin, he “would probably have read the case a little bit differently” if the pre-trial procedure of “discovery”, or the compilation of evidence, was “easier to come by”. Should there be no settlement in the case, the next legal step would be a “deposition”, in which Sacoolas and her husband would be forced to provide their account of events outside court. Dunn’s mother, Charlotte Charles, father Tim Dunn and twin brother Niall Dunn, would have the option to attend the deposition. Reacting to the judge’s ruling, the Dunn family’s spokesman Radd Seiger told the PA news agency: “Harry’s family are very pleased at the ruling today and that their claims have been allowed to proceed in full. “They are also pleased that Mr Sacoolas will also have to be deposed so that they can learn the full account of what happened on the night Harry died.” In February, Judge Ellis ruled the substantive claim against Mrs Sacoolas can go ahead in the US, despite the suspect’s motion to dismiss it. While making the application, lawyers acting on behalf of Mrs Sacoolas made admissions about her employment at the time of the road crash which killed Mr Dunn, saying she and her husband worked for the US state department and “fled” the UK due to “issues of security”. Judge Ellis allowed the case to remain in the US and dismissed Sacoolas’s application against the substantive civil claim, citing her “refusal” to return to the UK. During a short hearing on Wednesday, Judge Ellis told the parties the case could be settled outside court if both sides agreed to have those discussions. Before the hearing, the prime minister said the foreign secretary had raised the case with the US secretary of state. The PM earlier confirmed to the Dunn family’s constituency MP, Andrea Leadsom, that the UK government continues to raise the case “at the highest level”. Asked at prime minister’s Questions if he could try to persuade president Joe Biden to deliver justice for Dunn, Boris Johnson said: “She’s completely right to continue to raise the case of Harry Dunn and we sympathise deeply with his family. “It’s a case that we continue to raise at the highest level and I know that my right honourable friend the foreign secretary has only just raised it now with Tony Blinken, the US secretary of state.”