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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 >> Strods v Prosecutor Generals Office, Republic of Latvia [2014] EWHC 3691 (Admin) (17 October 2014)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2014/3691.html
Cite as: [2014] EWHC 3691 (Admin)
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QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
THE ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Strand London WC2A 2LL |
||
B e f o r e :
____________________
| MARTINS STRODS | Appellant | |
| v | ||
| PROSECUTOR GENERALS OFFICE, REPUBLIC OF LATVIA | Respondent |
____________________
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Mr B Seifert (instructed by the CPS Extradition Unit) appeared on behalf of the Respondent
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Crown Copyright ©
- MR JUSTICE BLAKE: This is a conjoined appeal from two decisions of judges sitting at the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court ordering this Appellant's return to Latvia on two European Arrest Warrants.
- EAW1 was issued on 18 May 2012 by a court known as the Ogre court in Latvia and concerns two allegations of theft said to have been committed by this Appellant on 25 June 2009. That warrant was not transmitted for some time and the Appellant was only arrested on 11 January 2014, when he was granted bail on a cash security of £2,000 and another condition. His objection to return was based on Article 8 grounds by reason of the fact that he has a fiancée in this country. That objection was heard on 14 July 2014 when the Senior District Judge ordered his extradition.
- EAW2 was issued by a different court, the Valmeira court, on 23 May 2012 and transmitted in December 2013. It relates to more serious offences: aggravated burglary and an assault said to have been committed on 22 February 2009 and a fourth offence of criminal damage, said to have been committed on 27 June 2009 which, it will be noted, is the day after the matters alleged in EAW1.
- EAW2 was certified on 13 January 2014 but, for some reason that is not at all clear, he was not arrested on this matter until 29 July 2014, that is after he had been dealt with on EAW1. He appeared in court the next day and did not contest his extradition, so an order was made against him by District Judge Blake on 30 July. He was then remanded in custody until granted bail in principle on 7 October 2014 by District Judge Goldsmith but, having regard to the fact that EAW2 contained considerably more serious offences of assaults and aggravated burglary, he was required to raise a further £1,000 cash. Because of the remand in custody and the fact that he was self-employed as a disc jockey, that was problematic. That further security has not, to this day, been raised and so he has remained in detention ever since.
- The Appellant, in the supplementary statement for the purpose of these proceedings, indicates that he is aggrieved at the failure of the authorities both in Latvia and the United Kingdom to coordinate the two EAWs so that he could have been arrested on both at the same time, a single decision made as to the quantum of security and as to his circumstances enabling him, at least, to plan his private and family life pending the conclusion of any appeal and, if unsuccessful, his removal to Poland.
- I agree with the Appellant's contentions that there appears to have been a failure to deal with the matter efficiently and that failure has meant: (1) that he has suffered a period of detention that might otherwise have been avoided, (2) the false illusion that he was to be on liberty after the conclusion of the proceedings on EAW1; and (3) that the Senior District Judge dealing with EAW1 did not have the full picture of his conduct before. I regret those matters and, for those reasons, I would accede to the submission to reevaluate the Article 8 assessment on both matters taken together, since that was not achieved on the original appeal.
- These two matters were both ordered to be heard together by Davies J on 8 August 2014 and revised chronologies and skeletons have been lodged. From that the following emerges. The Appellant was two months short of his 24th birthday when he was said to have committed the serious offences, briefly described already, alleged in EAW2 on 22 February 2009. He was detained and interrogated about them the same day, treated as a suspect in respect of them but at the conclusion of the process was released under police supervision on conditions that included a residence requirement. He applied to vary the residence requirement on 20 March 2009.
- On 25 June 2009 he is then said to have committed the two theft offences that are the subject of the EAW1. They are clearly significantly less serious offences and the value of the property stolen is comparatively trivial, but it can now be seen that they were alleged to have been committed whilst he was on police supervision pending trial for the much more serious offences. He suggests that he appropriated those items by error, but of course that is a matter for the trial court to determine.
- Then he went on, it is said, to commit the criminal damage offence mentioned in the last offence in EAW2 shortly thereafter. It would seem he was detained on 30 June and further questioned about matters on that day and then was released to reside, again in a specified place, on 2 July and a trial date set for 8 December 2009. On his own application this was vacated and a new trial date set for the EAW2 group of offences at the Valmeira court on 27 May 2010.
- Meanwhile, on 26 January 2010 he was arrested and detained in respect of the theft accusations in EAW1. He was released on 28 January with a condition not to leave his specified place of residence pending further proceedings in this matter due to be heard by the Ogre court.
- Shortly after his release in January 2010 he came to the United Kingdom to seek work and has remained here ever since. He was in breach of the residence requirements imposed by both courts. He failed to maintain contact with the authorities and failed to attend his trial in May 2010 at the Valmeira court, who promptly issued an arrest warrant. The subsequent information indicates that enquiries were then made as to his whereabouts, but it was not until April 2012 that there was reason to believe he had come to the United Kingdom and thereafter an EAW was issued. For some reason it was not transmitted for 20 months, which appears to be a period of unexplained delay.
- There is nothing from the Appellant to indicate that the authorities were made aware of his presence in the United Kingdom earlier than April 2012 and he is plainly a fugitive. In the light of this chronology of events combining the two matters, I can now reperform the Article 8 balance.
- The Appellant is a fugitive from court orders on two matters. He cannot rely on any delay directly resulting from his own acts and the chain of causation seems to me to be unbroken. Of course, it does not prevent him raising an Article 8 claim but where a person establishes family life and a personal life with a fiancée, knowing full well that he is a fugitive from justice, the weight to be given to that life is likely to be diminished in circumstances where it was precarious from the outset and he knew that he had to face trial and possible punishment.
- It is, of course, the case that he supports his partner since his arrival in the United Kingdom. He has been of good character for the four years of his residence here and has conducted self-employment as a DJ. But, again, that has to be seen in the light of the fact that he is a fugitive. The offences in EAW2 are extremely serious on any view and, if he is convicted of them, undoubtedly will result in a substantial period of detention. Further, it can now be seen that the EAW offences in sequence, although trivial in themselves, are committed after the EAW2 offences and in breach of bail.
- The overall period of the passage of time from the offences in 2009 is not significant, although the matter could have been dealt with more efficiently if there had been transmission of the warrant in a shorter period. But there is no evidence that conduct of the authorities or any delay by the Latvian state has led to a false sense of security in the Appellant that the investigation had been abandoned.
- There is, of course, always a public interest in international cooperation and the prevention of crime. The Appellant has been on an electronically monitored tag since January 2014, which restricts his liberty, and he has been remanded in custody since June 2014. If he is convicted and punished in Latvia, of course the latter time will be taken into account and deducted from any sentence and, depending upon the approach of the sentencing court, weight could be given to the restriction of liberty whilst these matters have been investigated, particularly as the split hearings has created the difficulties mentioned at the outset of this judgment.
- It is stated that his fiancée will suffer the hardship of separation and if she remains in England there will be difficulties in communicating. She is unlikely to have the resources to visit Latvia during any remand or sentence and it seems that the limited ability to telephone has been the subject of some criticisms by the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, in so far as they are limited to one or two occasions per month, rather than the present arrangements which will permit her to regularly contact him on remand.
- Those are all the factors prayed in aid by Miss Westcott for the Appellant and Mr Seifert for the Independent Judicial Authority. Miss Westcott concedes, effectively, that the more serious of the first three offences on EAW are such that there is little that can be said against his return on that warrant, but submits that this court should examine the proportionality of the return on each warrant and each offence of that warrant and so her submissions are directed to the theft offences in EAW1 and the criminal damage offence in EAW2. Against that, it is recognised that extradition will take place and that the private life that he presently enjoys with his fiancée will be interfered with. That is itself of some significance in considering what is the appropriate course to take with respect to the less serious offences.
- In my judgment, on the particular facts of this case the appropriate course is for the Latvian authorities to look at the conduct as a whole and for them to consider what is the appropriate sentence, if it comes to that, in the event of conviction following trial. I have no doubt that his extradition is justified and proportionate on all the matters set out in the warrants, albeit that some of them are significantly less serious than others.
- I express hope that when he is returned an overall assessment of his conduct and criminality can be taken, rather than the matter being divided up, as it has been in the extradition proceedings in the United Kingdom, which can give a somewhat misleading impression. But that, of course, is entirely a matter for the Latvian authorities.
- For the reasons I have given, and despite Miss Westcott's heroic submissions on his behalf, this appeal is dismissed.
- Do you want to address me on bail?
- MISS WESTCOTT: If I may. It is a short point.
- MR JUSTICE BLAKE: I have the point. What do you say about it? Do you seek to vary it to £500 in the next few days?
- MR SEIFERT: My Lord, I was neutral on the last application and I am neutral now. I make no submissions about a reduction.
- MR JUSTICE BLAKE: I think, serious as the EAW offences are, I suspect that if they'd all been put together we might have come up with £2,000, £2,500. I think we owe him something. If I reduce the terms of bail -- what are they?
- MISS WESTCOTT: They are set out at the end of my chronology as they were granted on 7 October.
- MR JUSTICE BLAKE: If I reduce the surety element to £500 for the EAW2 offences and then you have: passport retained, sleep and sleep at the Southampton address, tagged curfew.
- MISS WESTCOTT: I wrote "different" because there was a --
- MR JUSTICE BLAKE: I'm not too sure about that. What's the purpose of putting it back to midnight?
- MISS WESTCOTT: The previous conditions are set out on the previous page of my skeleton argument and there was a tagged curfew from 6.00 am to 10.00 am to accommodate working at night.
- MR JUSTICE BLAKE: Does he work at night?
- MISS WESTCOTT: He won't be resuming that work if he's granted bail, so therefore on 7 October I asked for a curfew of between 9.00 and 7.00, but for some reason the judge decided to implement it from midnight to 8.00. I think that was to accommodate casual work.
- MR JUSTICE BLAKE: If that has been done, then he can remain the same. I thought it was a different matter. I think he needs the tagged curfew to make sure that he's there. Reporting every Tuesday, et cetera, et cetera. To keep his mobile switched on 24 hours a day?
- MISS WESTCOTT: It's a standard condition. It's so that people can be contacted about how they are to be taken back to Latvia or Poland or elsewhere.
- MR JUSTICE BLAKE: I hope he has a charger which enables him to do that. It's just the amount of the security.
- MISS WESTCOTT: If it would assist, Mr Seifert and I can draft a order.
- MR JUSTICE BLAKE: Can you draft an order for the benefit of the associate?
- MISS WESTCOTT: I have his email address.
- MR JUSTICE BLAKE: Thank you for your help.