The High Court has ordered Peter Bolger’s release from extradition proceedings rather than require him to return to the United Kingdom to serve a three-year prison sentence imposed a decade earlier.
Bolger had been convicted at Southwark Crown Court in London in April 1995 of offences including stealing cheques and money, carrying on business with intent to defraud and forgery. He was sentenced in his absence on 2 June 1995 after becoming ill while in Ireland during his trial and failing to return to court.
UK authorities subsequently sought his extradition. An initial application failed in the District Court in October 1996. Fresh warrants were issued in 1998, followed by years of habeas corpus, judicial review and appeal proceedings. In June 2004, Judge Gerard Haughton ordered Bolger’s surrender under section 47 of the Extradition Act 1965.
Mr Justice Michael Peart first rejected Bolger’s judicial review challenge to that order. He found no unconstitutional unfairness in the conclusion of the English trial or sentencing in Bolger’s absence. Bolger had been present during the evidential phase of the trial and remained represented by solicitors and counsel afterwards. Challenges concerning the wording of the warrants and other procedural matters also failed.
The outcome changed, however, on Bolger’s separate application for release under section 50 of the Act.
Peart J identified three years and eight months of culpable delay attributable to the authorities in the extradition process. He regarded that as exceptional when measured against a sentence of only three years. Bolger had also lived openly in Ireland and had successfully resisted the first extradition attempt.
The judge found that Bolger had not provided sufficient current medical evidence to show that his health made surrender oppressive. Nevertheless, considering the overall period of about ten years since sentence, the relatively short term of imprisonment and the unexplained delay in pursuing extradition, he concluded that requiring Bolger to begin serving the sentence at that stage would be invidious.
The judicial review claim was therefore refused, but Bolger was ordered released under the separate statutory jurisdiction.