The High Court has found that a man held at Arbour Hill Prison was in lawful detention, rejecting three complaints about the basis for his custody pending surrender to the United Kingdom.
Ms Justice Faherty delivered the judgment on 20 January 2017 after an inquiry under Article 40.4.2 of the Constitution. The man had applied by letter on 11 January, and the court directed an inquiry and his production on 17 January.
The court heard that the man was the subject of a European Arrest Warrant issued in October 2015. The warrant stated that he had been convicted at Ipswich Crown Court of 13 offences involving indecent images of a child and three breaches of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order, and had failed to appear for sentencing. The High Court had ordered his surrender on 29 February 2016 in respect of the 13 image offences. That order, and subsequent stays pending earlier Article 40 proceedings, had been considered in two previous detention inquiries and an appeal. The Court of Appeal had upheld the conclusion that his detention was lawful.
In the current inquiry, the applicant argued that the warrant should not have been endorsed because there was no evidence supporting the stated conviction. The respondent relied on the information in the warrant, including its account of the conviction and the later arrest warrant, and said the domestic warrant did not have to accompany it. Justice Faherty held that the information in the European Arrest Warrant met the statutory requirements. She noted that the conviction argument had been rejected in the surrender proceedings and implicitly rejected in an earlier inquiry, which had not been appealed.
The applicant also relied on a Prison Service “Certificate of Imprisonment” that included a sentence start date of 3 November 2015 and a release date of 25 December 2020. He argued that the entries conflicted with the stated basis for his detention. The respondent said the dates were administrative entries used to operate a computerised prisoner management system and that the certificate was not a committal warrant. The judge found that the administrative records did not affect the legality of detention, which was supported by the committal warrant and subsequent High Court orders.
Finally, the applicant alleged that the committal warrant had been altered from 25 to 29 February 2016, making the stays late. The judge found that the final orders were made on 29 February, after an adjournment requested by the applicant’s counsel. She rejected the complaint and concluded that the applicant was in lawful detention. The court did not order his release.