By Owen Reid
The Supreme Court has upheld a High Court decision preventing the extradition of a seriously ill man who had pleaded guilty to indecent assault at Manchester Crown Court but returned to Ireland before he was sentenced.
M.B. was convicted on 9 November 1992 of an indecent assault alleged to have occurred between December 1988 and March 1990. He was due back before the Manchester court for sentencing on 7 December 1992 but did not appear, having returned to Ireland.
A Manchester arrest warrant was not issued until December 1995. It was endorsed for execution in Ireland in January 1996, and the District Court subsequently ordered M.B.'s delivery into the custody of Manchester police.
M.B. challenged that order under the Extradition Act 1965. The High Court ordered his release in March 1999, finding that the passage of time and his deteriorating health amounted to exceptional circumstances.
The Supreme Court agreed. Chief Justice Ronan Keane held that the relevant period ran from M.B.'s failure to appear for sentence in December 1992 until he began the Irish proceedings in April 1996.
The court accepted that M.B. had absconded, but also found that Manchester police had done little beyond circulating his name on the UK police computer. His whereabouts in Ireland could probably have been discovered earlier through his estranged wife, whose daughter was the complainant.
The decisive additional factor was M.B.'s health. Medical evidence showed severe steroid-dependent asthma and insulin-dependent diabetes, with several critical and life-threatening hospital admissions. His consultant said extradition could pose a serious threat to his life.
The court said extradition would not have been “unjust”, particularly given the guilty plea, but the combination of prosecutorial inaction, elapsed time and serious deterioration in health made it oppressive and invidious. The appeal was dismissed, leaving the High Court release order in place.