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

Having determined that the appellant was and remained a fugitive, I examine section 14. The Judge concluded at para 53:

“53.

I do not find that it would be unjust/oppressive to extradite the RP since the judgment on 3rd August 2018. He has spent time on remand and in relation to other warrants but this is something the Polish courts will take into account and deduct his sentence if he is extradited. She also prays in aid the fact that he has now had his son who was born in 2021. As I have already indicated I do not have a lot of information about his home circumstances. However between 3rd August 2018 and 24th January 2019 the RP was in custody and that would have impacted on his family life because he was not that with his partner at that time. I accept that in 2021 his son was born. But also during this time he committed an offence of dangerous driving in this jurisdiction and received a custodial sentence of 12 months imprisonment on 3rd June 2024. He has been in custody in relation to this AW since 29th January 2024. He has spent substantial amount of time in custody since 2018 which reduces the argument about the hardship to him resulting from his change in circumstances during the period to be taken into consideration because he has been in custody for a substantial amount of that time.”

A finding of fugitivity is not an absolute bar to section 14. However, there must be exceptional circumstances (see the helpful summary of the law in Zengota v Poland [2017] EWHC 191 (Admin) at para 32). I detect no exceptional circumstances here and nor did the Judge, quite correctly.

But in another sense, it is academic. The section 14 test requires that the requested person proves injustice or oppression on a balance of probabilities. It is conceded that this is not an injustice case. As to oppression, Lord Brown said in Gomes at para 31:

“… And, so far as concerns oppression, it is worth noting too Lord Diplock’s statement in Kakis v. Government of the Republic of Cyprus [1978] 1 WLR 779, 784 that: “the gravity of the offence is relevant to whether changes in the circumstances of the accused which have occurred during the relevant period are such as would render his return to stand his trial oppressive …” That said, the test of oppression will not easily be satisfied: hardship, a comparatively commonplace consequence of an order for extradition, is not enough.”

I recognise that the appellant and his partner had a son in 2021. The appellant was not in custody for 2 years and 3 months following the child’s birth. I cannot think that the effect of the unexplained three-year NCA delay in this case comes anywhere near to amounting to section 14 oppression. More precisely, there is no basis for the appellant to prove on the balance of probabilities that there is oppression here. In such finding, the Judge was not wrong.

This ground fails. There is no section 14 bar to extradition.