The High Court has ordered the surrender of Eamonn Ronald Harrison to the United Kingdom under a European Arrest Warrant seeking his prosecution over 41 alleged offences connected with the deaths of 39 people found in a lorry trailer in Essex in October 2019.
In a judgment delivered on 24 January 2020, Mr Justice Binchy dismissed Harrison’s objections and directed surrender under section 16 of the European Arrest Warrant Act 2003. The order concerns the charges set out in the warrant; it is not a determination of guilt.
The warrant lists 39 manslaughter charges and two conspiracy charges: conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration and conspiracy to commit a human trafficking offence. The prosecution alleges Harrison drove the trailer from Belgium to Zeebrugge port on 22 October 2019. It says the trailer, carrying 39 people, was shipped to Purfleet in England, where the occupants were found dead. The judgment records that the cause and precise time and place of death were uncertain at the time of the hearing; early indications cited in the prosecution information pointed to hypoxia, with hyperthermia also a possible factor.
The prosecution information set out two possible bases for the manslaughter charges: an unlawful and dangerous act, or gross negligence. Harrison argued that the information did not adequately describe his alleged involvement, that the offences did not correspond to offences under Irish law, and that surrender was barred because some alleged conduct or deaths may have occurred outside the United Kingdom. He also challenged the use of information supplied by the Crown Prosecution Service rather than the issuing judicial authority and argued that no decision to charge and try him had been made.
The judge admitted the additional information, finding it could be considered alongside the warrant. He rejected the territorial objection, holding that the manslaughter allegations could constitute offences under Irish law even if deaths occurred outside UK territorial waters, and that the alleged agreement behind the human-trafficking conspiracy was said to have been made in the United Kingdom.
For the correspondence challenge, the judge found the alleged acts would amount to manslaughter and conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration offences if committed in Ireland. The court also upheld reliance on the warrant’s human-trafficking designation under the European Arrest Warrant framework, finding no manifest error. On the charge-and-trial issue, the statutory presumption that a decision had been made was not rebutted; the judge accepted that the prosecution could advance alternative bases for manslaughter.
Two further objections concerning the warrant’s issuing-judge details and fair procedures were not pursued at the hearing and were not decided.