The Court of Appeal has dismissed Barry McArdle’s appeal against the refusal of bail while High Court proceedings over his surrender to the Netherlands remain pending.
In a judgment delivered on 27 June 2019, Mr Justice John Edwards said the High Court judge had been entitled to conclude there was a real and significant risk that Mr McArdle would not attend his surrender hearing. The appeal court found no error of principle and said the refusal was within the judge’s discretion.
The European arrest warrant was issued to secure Mr McArdle’s attendance before the Dutch Supreme Court for a cassation review of his case. The Irish High Court endorsed the warrant on 17 January 2019. Mr McArdle was arrested on 3 May 2019 and intends to contest surrender at a section 16 hearing, which was pending before the High Court at the time of the appeal.
The judgment recounts that Mr McArdle was convicted in the Netherlands of concealing a body from criminal investigation and acquitted of manslaughter at first instance. After a prosecutor’s appeal, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal overturned the acquittal and imposed an overall 13-year sentence in May 2018. Mr McArdle appealed to the Dutch Supreme Court. The Court of Appeal noted that he remained a convicted person while that review was pending and did not have a presumption of innocence for the bail application.
The State opposed bail on flight-risk grounds. Evidence before the High Court included Garda testimony that, after being told about the warrant, Mr McArdle had become difficult to locate and moved between addresses in Dublin and Galway. The Garda also cited an earlier failure to answer station bail and previous occasions when European arrest warrants had been used to secure his attendance in court. Mr McArdle’s partner disputed that he had deliberately avoided Garda contact and attributed his failure to sign on for social welfare to illness, stress and depression, as well as doing painting work.
The High Court refused bail, citing the difficulty locating Mr McArdle and his failure to collect social welfare. The appeal court said the judge had considered the evidence and could reasonably find the risk of non-attendance sufficient to deny bail. It therefore dismissed the appeal. The judgment did not decide whether Mr McArdle would ultimately be surrendered to the Netherlands; that issue remained for the pending High Court proceedings.