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

In Pillar-Neumann, Hamblen LJ (as he then was) said at para 62:

“The essential question is therefore whether the Requested Person has knowingly placed himself beyond the reach of legal process. Fleeing the country, concealing whereabouts or evading arrest are examples of so doing.”

The requested person had been resident in the United Kingdom since 1998 as the wife of a British citizen before the criminal investigation into her began in Austria six years later in 2004. By that time, Britain was her home. She had lived openly throughout, had taken no steps to conceal her identity or location, including placing herself on the electoral role and paying UK taxes. The requesting state’s argument was that when Austria issued an arrest warrant in 2004, by her not travelling to Austria to face it, she became a fugitive from Austrian justice.

Therefore, she did not deliberately place herself beyond the reach of the Austrian legal process. She was already beyond the reach and so “she took no positive steps to place herself anywhere” (para 70). She did not conceal her identity or whereabouts; she took no positive steps to evade arrest. She did not knowingly or deliberately take any step to avoid the Austrian criminal proceedings (legal process). She was “simply carrying on living in her country of residence, as she was lawfully entitled to do” (para 69).

The Divisional Court concluded she was not a fugitive.