The High Court ordered the surrender of Thomas O’Rourke to the United Kingdom on two European arrest warrants, after finding that the offences specified in both warrants corresponded to offences under Irish law and that no legal bar to surrender applied.
Mr Justice Michael Peart delivered the judgment on 17 June 2010. The first warrant, dated 12 November 2009, was endorsed for execution in Ireland on 9 December 2009, and O’Rourke was arrested on 12 December. The second, dated 7 January 2010, was endorsed on 27 January, and he was arrested on 10 February. Surrender was sought so he could be prosecuted for the offences in the warrants.
The first warrant listed six offences. Attempted murder and causing grievous bodily harm were identified as offences under Article 2.2 of the European Arrest Warrant Framework Decision. The court considered correspondence for the other four, which concerned firearms. It held that possessing the handgun described in the warrant without a firearm certificate would be an offence under section 2(2) of Ireland’s Firearms Act 1925. The court said barrel length was not relevant to that Irish offence. It also found correspondence for the allegations of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life, possessing one with intent to commit an indictable offence, and carrying a firearm with ammunition in a public place.
The second warrant listed four offences: agreeing to pervert the course of justice, robbery, conspiracy to rob, and escaping from lawful custody. The court found that the latter three corresponded to Irish offences. O’Rourke challenged correspondence for the perverting-the-course-of-justice charge, which alleged an agreement with Janet Mulligan to provide false information, give false evidence, and conceal that they knew one another.
His counsel argued that the allegation about concealing their acquaintance described an omission rather than a positive act, and therefore could not correspond to the Irish offence. The judge rejected that submission, finding that the alleged agreement as a whole, including the concealment, could pervert the course of justice under Irish common law. These were allegations set out in the warrant; the judgment was deciding whether the offences corresponded for surrender purposes.
The judgment recounts that O’Rourke had been acquitted at an earlier UK trial. That earlier outcome was part of the warrant’s background and was distinct from the High Court’s decision on surrender. The judge was satisfied that the statutory provisions and other rules identified in the judgment did not prohibit surrender. He therefore ordered surrender on both warrants for prosecution.