The High Court ordered Michal Lech Bartold’s surrender to Poland on three offences under a European arrest warrant, after rejecting his objection that one conviction matter involved a trial in absentia.
In an ex tempore judgment delivered on 1 March 2012, Mr Justice Edwards said the warrant covered one prosecution matter and two conviction matters. The court found the warrant had been endorsed for execution in Ireland and executed on 4 October 2011. Mr Bartold appeared before the High Court the next day and was remanded on bail. The judge said he had complied with bail and that this raised no issue.
The first matter, labelled Case A in the warrant, was still a prosecution. The court found it corresponded to assault causing harm under section 3 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997. The warrant stated that the offence was punishable in Poland by up to three years’ imprisonment, meeting the minimum-gravity threshold. The judge found no reason to refuse surrender on this matter.
Cases B and C concerned existing convictions and sentences. For Case B, the court found correspondence with threatening to damage property under section 3 of the Criminal Damage Act 1991. The particulars described a threat to burn a music club. The judge did not decide whether the alternative suggested offence also corresponded. An eight-month sentence met the four-month minimum threshold.
For Case C, the court found correspondence with assault under section 2 of the 1997 Act and violent disorder under section 15 of that Act. It did not decide whether the particulars also corresponded to assault causing harm or entering a building with intent to commit an offence. The sentence was ten months, above the four-month threshold.
The respondent argued that an appeal concerning Case C had been determined in his absence and that surrender required an undertaking of a retrial or rehearing. The judge said the information did not make clear whether the appeal concerned conviction as well as sentence. He noted that the original trial, conviction and sentence had taken place in the respondent’s presence. The judgment said the warrant referred to the appeal summons being duly served, and that the respondent had left Poland after filing his appeal.
The judge declined to apply the Supreme Court’s Sliczynski ruling on notification for a first-instance trial to an appeal lodged by the respondent and determined after he had left the country. He ruled that section 45 did not apply in those circumstances, rejected the objection and found no undertaking was required. The court then directed surrender on all three offences under section 16(1).