AC-2024-LON-003550 - [2025] EWHC 2831 (Admin)

It is important not to overcomplicate this. The proper construction of the statutory phrase “otherwise than in the course of stealing” is clear. The natural and ordinary meaning of the words does not exclude a thief on Day 1 becoming a handler of the fruits of her or his theft on Day 2. That is what the Polish judicial authorities allege here. The respondent has proved to the criminal standard that the conduct in paragraph 2 of the arrest warrant for the II K 779/12 case file amounts to an offence under the first limb of section 22 of the Theft Act 1968. I conclude that the Judge was unquestionably right to find a relevant extradition offence and reject the section 10 objection. In appellate test terms, she is not wrong. Her section 10 decision should not be decided differently.

Ground 1 fails.