The Supreme Court has dismissed Oliver Coleman’s appeal against a High Court decision refusing to release him from extradition proceedings to face trial in Leeds. It affirmed the High Court order made on 10 April 2002.
The appeal concerned section 50(2)(bbb) of the Extradition Act 1965, as amended. The provision allows release where the lapse of time since the alleged offence and other exceptional circumstances make delivery for trial unjust, oppressive or invidious. The Supreme Court said the lapse of time and other circumstances must both be exceptional.
Coleman had been charged with causing grievous bodily harm with intent after Hugh Raymond O’Gorman was seriously assaulted in Leeds on 9 June 1989. O’Gorman died on 12 October 1990 without regaining consciousness. Coleman was released on bail but did not attend his trial, which had been set for 16 October 1990. He said in an affidavit that he returned to Shannonbridge, Co Offaly, in 1990 and had lived there since.
The court reviewed conflicting and incomplete accounts of efforts to locate him. It accepted evidence that Leeds police contacted Gardaí soon after Coleman missed trial, including a letter sent to a Garda in October 1990. The court found that the lapse of time had not been shown to result from unexplained or inexcusable delay by the requesting authorities.
Coleman argued that the delay led him to believe the authorities were no longer pursuing the case, impaired his ability to defend himself, and that a television programme about him could prejudice a trial. The court said he had not demonstrated a real risk of an unfair trial arising from missing solicitor files or potentially unavailable witnesses. It also condemned an interviewer’s unqualified assertion that Coleman was guilty, calling such publicity highly undesirable. However, it considered that the programme was a single publication made about four and a half years earlier, leaving time for its effect to fade, and did not find it an exceptional circumstance warranting release.
The Supreme Court said Coleman had not established other exceptional circumstances or shown that extradition for trial would be unjust, oppressive or invidious. It dismissed the appeal and affirmed the High Court order. The decision concerns release under the extradition legislation; it does not determine the criminal charge.