AC-2023-LON-001835 - [2025] EWHC 2770 (Admin)

First, the Respondent alleges that the facts alleged in the Warrant would constitute the extra-territorial offence of conspiracy to obtain financial gain by controlling prostitution (s.53 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003).

Section 53(1) of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 provides:

“Trafficking out of the UK for sexual exploitation

A person commits an offence if—

(a)

he intentionally controls any of the activities of another person relating to that person’s prostitution in any part of the world, and

(b)

he does so for or in the expectation of gain for himself or a third person.”

The Respondent accepts that s.53 itself does not create a free-standing extra-territorial offence.

So far as the law of criminal conspiracy is concerned, s.1A of the Criminal Law Act 1977 provides:

“(1)

Where each of the following conditions is satisfied in the case of an agreement, this Part of this Act has effect in relation to the agreement as it has effect in relation to an agreement falling within section 1(1) above.

(2)

The first condition is that the pursuit of the agreed course of conduct would at some stage involve—

(a)

an act by one or more of the parties, or

(b)

the happening of some other event,

intended to take place in a country or territory outside England and Wales.

(3)

The second condition is that that act or other event constitutes an offence under the law in force in that country or territory.

(4)

The third condition is that the agreement would fall within section 1(1) above as an agreement relating to the commission of an offence but for the fact that the offence would not be an offence triable in England and Wales if committed in accordance with the parties' intentions.

(5)

The fourth condition is that—

(a)

a party to the agreement, or a party's agent, did anything in England and Wales in relation to the agreement before its formation, or

(b)

a party to the agreement became a party in England and Wales (by joining it either in person or through an agent), or

(c)

a party to the agreement, or a party's agent, did or omitted anything in England and Wales in pursuance of the agreement.”

Mr Beraru challenges the presence of two of the required four elements (making the necessary transposition):

As to the first, I am satisfied that the Warrant fairly read does allege an agreed course of conduct which would at some stage involve an act by one or more of the parties or the happening of an event intended to take place in a country outside Romania (s.1A(2(a)), and that this is not merely an inference which is capable of being drawn but is the inference which should be drawn. Section E and the Further Information allege the following facts:

As to the requirement that a party to the agreement either did something in Romania in relation to the agreement before its formation; or a party to the agreement became a party to the agreement in Romania; or a party to the agreement did or omitted anything in Romania pursuant to the agreement (s.1(2)(d)):

In relation to that last point, the importance in a case based on an agreed course of conduct such as arises from the membership of a criminal gang with focussing on the criminal purpose to which the object of the extradition request is alleged to have subscribed, rather than focussing solely on the specific acts they are alleged to have taken personally to implement the objects of the criminal gang, was emphasised in Andreas Kodos v Prosecutor General’s Office of the Republic of Lithuania [2010] EWHC 897 (Admin), [19], where a Divisional Court comprising Richards LJ and Cranston J stated of a similar argument to that advanced by Mr Beraru in this case:

“In my judgment, Miss Barnes's argument proceeded on a mistaken premise in singling out things done by the appellant himself in England and failing thereby to give full effect to the description of the conduct in the warrant. That description makes clear that the appellant is alleged to have been a party to a joint enterprise encompassing all the conduct in question. For example, in relation to the first woman, Rasa Gudomskiene, it starts by referring to the appellant ‘acting in an organized group’ with named individuals, ‘under pre-agreement to recruit, buy and sell women for prostitution in the United Kingdom’. The various steps taken in Lithuania to secure the woman's transfer to the United Kingdom for the purposes of prostitution are included not just by way of narrative background but as an integral part of the conduct which is alleged to constitute the offence committed by the appellant. The conduct relied on in relation to him is not limited to the ‘buying’ of the woman by sending money from England to Lithuania. The position is the same in relation to the offences concerning each of the other women, where the description of the conduct contains similar language as to pre-agreement and participation in an organised group. In their case the conduct encompassed within the joint enterprise extends to the acts of engaging the women in prostitution and gaining income from their prostitution. This brings in additional offences, but not by way of separate matters relevant to the appellant alone: those acts, too, are integral parts of the overall arrangement to which he is a party and which involved things done in Lithuania as well as in England.”