The High Court ordered the surrender of P.P.H. to the United Kingdom under a European Arrest Warrant, finding that the requirements of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003 were met and that no legal bar to surrender had been established.
In a judgment delivered on 24 May 2011, Mr Justice Edwards said the warrant sought P.P.H.’s surrender for prosecution on five offences: three of abducting a child and two of sexual activity with a child. The court noted that the warrant had been endorsed for execution in Ireland. P.P.H. had been arrested in Longford on 22 March 2011, but identity was disputed.
The judge was satisfied that the person brought before the court was the person named in the warrant. He relied on evidence from Sergeant James Kirwan, including the man’s responses when shown the warrant and an accompanying photograph. The court said apparent differences in names and nationality on an appended UK fingerprint form were not part of the warrant itself and were not significant in the circumstances.
The respondent argued that the warrant was invalid, including because it referred to a non-existent section of the UK Child Abduction Act 1984 and because the offences did not fit the category ticked in the warrant for sexual exploitation of children and child pornography. The court treated the reference to “section 21(b)” as a typographical error: further information from the issuing state identified the provision as section 2(1)(b). It declined to look behind the category box, finding no exceptional circumstances that justified doing so.
The court also declined to rule on the proportionality of the warrant’s provision for seizure of property. It said there was no evidence that the power to seize cash, phones, identity documents, correspondence or firearms had been used, so the issue was moot.
P.P.H. argued that extensive adverse publicity in the UK would prevent a fair trial and that delay made surrender incompatible with the State’s obligations. The judge said the evidence did not rebut the presumption that the issuing state would respect fundamental rights or show that an effective remedy was unavailable there. He made no finding on whether there had been culpable prosecutorial delay, saying such issues were generally more appropriately litigated in the requesting state. The court also rejected the remaining objection that surrender would be unjust or breach constitutional rights.
The order was for surrender to the issuing state under the warrant. The judgment decided the surrender application; it did not determine the criminal charges against P.P.H.