The High Court rejected a respondent’s objections to surrender under a UK European Arrest Warrant seeking him for prosecution over one alleged indecent assault. The court said it could make an order for his surrender to a person authorised by the UK to receive him; the judgment does not state that the order was made.
The warrant described the alleged offence as occurring in June or July 1977. The respondent disputed the date and circumstances. Information from the issuing state indicated that the alleged incident occurred in the complainant’s last year of primary school, likely June or July 1978. The court treated 1977 as an error and found the warrant concerned the same incident for which the respondent had previously been questioned. It rejected the argument that the warrant lacked sufficient clarity.
The allegation, as summarised by the court, was that the respondent, then a teacher, indecently assaulted a 10-year-old pupil in a school staff room. The respondent denied wrongdoing. The court found that the alleged conduct would correspond to offences in Ireland and that the seriousness threshold for surrender was met. It also found no applicable ground requiring refusal under the provisions it considered, including the rules on trials in absentia.
The respondent argued that the long delay, two earlier decisions not to prosecute, and the absence of an opportunity to make submissions when prosecution was reconsidered made surrender unfair. The court said any challenge based on prosecutorial delay or trial fairness was more appropriately addressed in the UK, where the prosecution would take place. It found no culpable delay by the UK prosecution service: the complainant’s mother had initially opposed proceeding, and after the complainant sought a review of a 2014 decision not to prosecute, further investigation led to a decision to prosecute in January 2017.
The respondent also relied on his personal circumstances and the effect surrender would have on his adult son, who had mental health difficulties. The court accepted that the long delay, previous decisions not to prosecute and resulting stress weighed significantly in the balance. It also recognised the impact on the son. But it concluded that these circumstances did not make surrender disproportionate to the public interest in prosecuting the serious allegation.
The court rejected all the points of objection. Its conclusion authorised it to make a surrender order; the judgment’s final paragraph does not record that such an order was actually made.