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England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions
You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales High Court (Administrative Court) Decisions >> The Government of Lithuania v AI [2010] EWHC 2299 (Admin) (28 July 2010)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2010/2299.html
Cite as: [2010] EWHC 2299 (Admin)
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QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
DIVISIONAL COURT
Strand London WC2A 2LL |
||
B e f o r e :
MR JUSTICE OUSELEY
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| THE GOVERNMENT OF LITHUANIA | Claimant | |
| v | ||
| AI | Defendant |
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Mr E Fitzgerald QC and Daniel Jones (instructed by Central Law Practice) appeared on behalf of the Defendant
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- MR JUSTICE OUSELEY: On 20 April 2010, District Judge Riddle at Westminster City Magistrates' Court discharged the respondent to this appeal, who had been arrested pursuant to a European arrest warrant issued by a judicial authority in Lithuania. The name of the respondent is not to be published, and is only to be referred to by the initials "AI".
- The extradition warrant was issued in order to procure her return to serve the balance of just under 14 months of a sentence of one year and ten months. The judicial authority appeals against the discharge of AI. Lithuania is a category 1 territory for the purposes of the Extradition Act 2003.
- In 2003 AI had been engaged in a series of frauds, taking deposits for leases on flats she could not rent out. She was convicted in 2004 or 2005 and the series of sentences meant, in effect, she was sentenced to one year and ten months in prison. She served eight months of her sentence before being released conditionally. One condition required her not to leave her area of residence for more than seven days without consent with the relevant authorities. She breached that condition leaving Lithuania in July 2006, and coming to the United Kingdom.
- The District Judge accepted that she had been persuaded to come to the United Kingdom to find work by a man who forced her, once she had arrived in the United Kingdom, into prostitution. She worked for him as a prostitute for a year, or so, until she was able to escape with the assistance of a customer in the autumn of 2007.
- The Lithuanian Court in August 2008 required her to serve the balance of her sentence, having cancelled her conditional release, and it is that which led to the issue of the warrant. AI was arrested, pursuant to the warrant on 9 August 2009, and remained in custody for five months until she was released on bail.
- The District Judge discharged the respondent under the provisions of section 21 of the 2003 Act, because he concluded that, in the very particular circumstances of her case, there was a real risk that her rights under Article 3 of the ECHR would be breached during her time in prison in Lithuania. This was not a view he reached because he took the view that generally prisoners would be at a risk of having their Article 3 rights breached in Lithuania, and indeed he could not have done so in view of the very many cases which make the generality of the position in Lithuania entirely clear. His concern related to particular features of AI's circumstances, and what he thought was the proper understanding of the response of the Lithuanian authorities to specific requests he made for information about how AI would be protected in prison.
- The specific protection concerns arose from the fact that AI had been trafficked into prostitution by someone who the Lithuanian authorities recognised was associated with criminal organisations, and from the fact that AI had been of specific assistance to the police in this country, and was expected to continue to be of assistance to the police in this country in significant ways in connection with the investigation into trafficking of women for prostitution. He was concerned that for retribution, and in order to procure silence, specific needs existed which had not been adequately addressed in the Lithuanian response to his enquiries. The District Judge was well aware that he was reaching a very specific conclusion on what he regarded as wholly exceptional circumstances.
- That conclusion is challenged by Mr Jones on behalf of the Lithuanian judicial authority. For the reasons which I shall come to, it is not necessary to express a view, one way or the other, about the conclusion on Article 3 reached by the District Judge. I say only that there is a perfectly proper case to be argued, in particular, about whether the relevant letter has been misunderstood and taken in a way that it was not intended.
- However, although Mr Fitzgerald did not argue an Article 8 point before the District Judge, Mr Fitzgerald for AI has, in response to the appeal, sought to sustain the District Judge's decision by reference to this fresh argument. It has been, to a modest degree, bolstered by evidence which came into existence after the District Judge's decision. Mr Jones does not object to Mr Fitzgerald's defence of the District Judge's decision by reference to Article 8 and the fresh evidence. Accordingly we have considered that point.
- The specific features of the Article 8 point are these: Mr Fitzgerald recognises that for Article 8 to defeat a European arrest warrant, or indeed a category 2 case, it requires unusual or exceptionally compelling features. He submits, and I accept, that those features exist in this case.
- The first set of features concerns the interests of justice to be served by the arrest warrant. The purpose of the warrant is to procure the return of AI so that she may serve the balance of her sentence following non-compliance with the conditions imposed on her conditional release, after she had served that part of her sentence required in Lithuania before such release. She has served a further five months in custody in the United Kingdom, which would count towards her sentence in Lithuania. Accordingly she has served 13 months in custody out of a total sentence of 22 months, or, putting it another way, five months out of the nearly 14 months which she would have left to serve were she returned. Therefore she has already served a significant proportion of her sentence for the frauds.
- The Lithuanian Government also made it clear that were it possible for her to serve the balance of her sentence in the United Kingdom it would be happy for her to do so. That has not proved possible, but the important point is what it signifies for the interests of justice in relation to the warrant. It signifies that the Lithuanian authorities are content for her to be treated as subject to the United Kingdom release provisions.
- The England and Wales release provisions would have meant that having served the time she has she would now be eligible for release on home detention curfew, rather than continuing to be imprisoned. The reality is, therefore, that the Lithuanian judicial authority does not seek her continued imprisonment.
- The second set of circumstances concern the very particular personal circumstances of AI. Her account of her coming to the United Kingdom and being forced immediately into prostitution was accepted by the District Judge and was not challenged, and it is not challenged before us. She has been finally determined to be a person who has been the victim of trafficking, following an investigation by the United Kingdom Human Trafficking Centre.
- The District Judge had before him a significant amount of evidence from a doctor, Patricia Rawlinson, and Ms Stepnitz from the POPPY project, which explained the significant trauma which someone trafficked and forced to work as a prostitute, such as AI was, suffers from. It said that in order for her to make a significant recovery from her abusive history she needed access to long-term support with specially trained practitioners.
- The evidence also shows that in consequence of her enforced prostitution she has a serious illness, which requires treatment, and also suffers from a mental trauma that requires support and care. She has also obtained secure accommodation, which enables her to have a sense of personal security, important for someone who has been through what she has been through: accommodation which would be lost upon her extradition. The support would be lost as well. Those are particularly important personal circumstances.
- The third factor concerns the assistance which she has given to the police in the investigation of offences related to her, and the ongoing assistance which she is giving to the police. It is not necessary to go into detail about it. The District Judge had significant evidence from the police directly about the assistance and the role she was expected to play. The police made it quite clear that her removal from the United Kingdom to Lithuania would be damaging to the police investigation and trial process. Therefore there is a third and important factor directly related to the interests of justice.
- It is not necessary to go into any risks that might be found in Lithuania, even without there being an argument of a breach of Article 3. However, when all those factors are taken together they make up, to my mind, an exceptional and compelling case such that the interests of justice in extradition to Lithuania, which are the interests which permit the interference with her private life under Article 8, are clearly outweighed by the serious difficulties which would be experienced by her and by the harm to the interests of justice.
- I add that Mr Jones has been entirely realistic, and wholly fair in his acceptance of the importance of the circumstances I have related to the Article 8 ground of resistence put forward by Mr Fitzgerald. In so doing he has, in reality, accepted that the particular circumstances, as they have now unfolded, made a perfectly proper case for the appeal to be dismissed, but on Article 8 rather than on the specific Article 3 grounds identified by the District Judge. I am grateful to him for his responsibility and indeed to his client in that respect.
- In my judgment, therefore, the appeal should be dismissed for the very specific reasons related to the circumstances in this case. This was an arrest warrant which was perfectly understandably issued, but as circumstances and knowledge of them came to light the basis for it was overtaken. I would accordingly dismiss this appeal.
- LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I agree. The circumstances in this case, to which reference has been made by Ouseley J, are truly exceptional and nobody should seek to derive any wider principles of law from them.
- MR JONES: I am very much obliged.
- MR FIZTGERALD QC: If I need an order for legal aid taxation can I have one? I do not know what the position is.
- LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: You probably need an order for assessment under the relevant regulations, and Mr Fitzgerald you may certainly have it. Thank you all very much and thank you for the very hard work you have put into the case and for your submissions.