The High Court ordered John Ward’s surrender to the United Kingdom for prosecution under a European arrest warrant, after finding that the alleged conduct corresponded to offences under Irish law. The court rejected the objections to surrender addressed in the judgment, but did not decide whether Ward committed either alleged offence.
The warrant sought Ward’s surrender over two UK allegations arising from a fatal road collision in Manchester on 10 September 2006: perverting the course of justice and causing death by dangerous driving. The warrant alleged that a recovery truck driven by co-accused Paul Tyler struck pedestrians at a crossing, killing one and injuring the other. It said the truck had defects in its steering, brakes and tyres.
The warrant further alleged that Ward had bought the truck and, when giving a statement to police after the collision, did not disclose that he owned it or that he could identify its driver. It alleged he caused Tyler to drive dangerously because he knew the vehicle was defective. These were allegations in support of the UK prosecution request, not findings that Ward had committed the offences.
Ward argued that the warrant’s facts did not correspond to offences in Ireland. His counsel also challenged the admissibility of an affidavit from a British police officer that supplied additional information. The judge held that the affidavit could be considered as information provided at the behest of the issuing judicial authority, but did not rely on it to establish correspondence for the first offence.
On the perverting-the-course-of-justice allegation, the judge found that the warrant described more than silence: it alleged Ward gave a statement while withholding information he had been asked to provide. If proved, that could amount to a positive act of concealment intended to impede the police investigation and would constitute the Irish common-law offence.
For the second allegation, the judge found the warrant did not establish that Ward knew about the truck’s defects, so the facts did not correspond to the Irish offence of counselling or procuring dangerous driving causing death. However, the judge found they did correspond to the separate offence under section 54(2) of the Road Traffic Act 1961: as owner, Ward could have discovered the dangerous defects through ordinary care. The court held that correspondence could be established even though the Irish offence was summary.
The judge also rejected Ward’s constitutional objection based on self-incrimination, accepting the submission that his police statement was a witness statement rather than a compelled statement. The judgment noted that a separate constitutional challenge to the legislation had been rejected in earlier cases then under appeal, and saw no reason to reach a different conclusion.
The court ordered surrender to the issuing state. The order permits the UK prosecution to proceed; it is not a determination of Ward’s guilt.