R v Governor of Ashford Remand Centre, ex parte Postlethwaite
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | Lord Bridge of Harwich,Lord Templeman,Lord Griffiths,Lord Ackner,Lord Goff of Chieveley |
| Judgment Date | 13 July 1987 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1987] UKHL J0713-1 |
| Date | 13 July 1987 |
| Court | House of Lords |
[1987] UKHL J0713-1
Lord Bridge of Harwich
Lord Templeman
Lord Griffiths
Lord Ackner
Lord Goff of Chieveley
House of Lords
My Lords,
The Government of Belgium seek the extradition of the 26 respondents on charges of manslaughter. They were committed to prison by order of the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate ("the magistrate") on 3 March 1987 pursuant to section 10 of the Extradition Act 1870 ("the Act") there to await the warrant of a Secretary of State for their surrender to the Belgian authorities. They applied for writs of habeas corpus ad subjiciendum. These applications were allowed by order of the Divisional Court (Watkins L.J. and Mann J.) on 30 April subject to a stay of execution of the writs pending any appellate proceedings in your Lordships' House. The appeals of the Government of Belgium, pursuant to leave duly granted by the House, now fall for determination.
The extradition charges arise out of the terrible and tragic events which occurred at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels on 29 May 1985. Liverpool Football Club were to play Juventus of Turin in the final of the European Cup Championship. What happened will be vividly remembered by all who saw television news pictures or read newspaper accounts of it at the time. It is succinctly and graphically described in the judgment of the Divisional Court delivered by Watkins L.J. in the following passage:
"The majority of the English supporters were accommodated on terraces in blocks called X and Y, whilst the Italians were placed in an adjacent block called Z. A wire netting fence and a line or two of police officers separated the rival supporters. A short while before the match was due to begin the English supporters, many of them undoubtedly the worse for drink, became extremely boisterous, noisy and restive. Suddenly they went on the rampage. They smashed down the wire netting fence, broke through the police ranks and advanced menacingly upon the Italians. They and the police retreated before what had become a riotous mob bent on attacking them. Three times the English launched attacks, hurling all manner of missiles upon their desperately frightened victims who had no ready avenue of escape. Under the crush of people who were in a state of panic a retaining wall collapsed. Hundreds of men, women and children were injured as they were trampled upon. No fewer than thirty-nine of them were killed, thirty-four of whom were Italians and one a ten year old boy. All of them were asphyxiated."
The manslaughter charges of which the respondents stand accused before the appropriate Belgian court relate to one of the Italian victims named Mario Ronchi.
It is hardly surprising that the investigation to identify and assemble necessary evidence to justify the prosecution of any individuals who might be held criminally liable in such a case should have taken a long time. It was not until 5 June 1986 that the Belgian court issued warrants for the arrest of the respondents.
The Order in Council which directs, pursuant to section 2 of the Act, that the Act shall apply to Belgium is No. 208 of 1902 which embodies the principal extradition treaty concluded between His Britannic Majesty and His Majesty the King of the Belgians on 29 October 1901 ("the Treaty"). Amendments made by later treaties embodied in later Orders in Council are not material for present purposes.
On 3 July 1986 requisitions for the surrender of the respondents pursuant to section 7 of the Act and article II of the Treaty were received at the Foreign Office. They were accompanied, as article II requires that they should be, by warrants issued by the Belgian court together with the Belgian evidence in the form of depositions or statements on oath taken in Belgium and duly authenticated in the manner provided by section 15 of the Act. As article II requires, the documents were transmitted to the Home Office and on 27 August 1986, still in pursuance of section 7 and article II, the Home Secretary issued his orders to the magistrate signifying that the requisitions had been made and requiring him, if there were due cause, to issue his warrants for the apprehension of the respondents (conventionally and conveniently referred to as the "orders to proceed"). The orders, accompanied by the authenticated warrants, depositions and statements together with necessary translations, were transmitted to Bow Street.
In accordance with the normal practice in extradition matters the Director of Public Prosecutions ("the D.P.P.") had the conduct on behalf of the Government of Belgium of the proceedings in England. He was proposing at the committal hearing to rely on the evidence of 75 English witnesses, including 52 police officers who had interviewed the respondents. All these witnesses resided in England. None had testified in Belgium. Following a practice which the Solicitor-General informed your Lordships had been adopted in such cases ever since 1967, when the provisions now found in section 102 of the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980 were first enacted as section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1967, he furnished to the magistrate written statements of all those witnesses which complied with the conditions laid down by section 102(2)( a) and ( b) ("the section 102 statements"). It is convenient at this point to interpose in the narrative a citation of the relevant provisions of section 102 as follows:
"(1) In committal proceedings a written statement by any person shall, if the conditions mentioned in subsection (2) below are satisfied, be admissible as evidence to the like extent as oral evidence to the like effect by that person.
(2) The said conditions are-
( a) the statement purports to be signed by the person who made it;
( b) the statement contains a declaration by that person to the effect that it is true to the best of his knowledge and belief and that he made the statement knowing that, if it were tendered in evidence, he would be liable to prosecution if he wilfully stated in it anything which he knew to be false or did not believe to be true;
( c) before the statement is tendered in evidence, a copy of the statement is given, by or on behalf of the party proposing to tender it, to each of the other parties to the proceedings; and
( d) none of the other parties, before the statement is tendered in evidence at the committal proceedings, objects to the statement being so tendered under this section."
Resuming the narrative, the magistrate had the section 102 statements as well as the Belgian evidence before him when he issued warrants pursuant to section 8 of the Act for the arrest of all the respondents on 8 September 1986. The warrants were executed on 10 and 12 September. The respondents first appeared before the magistrate on 15 September and were all remanded on bail to 10 November. I should mention at this point that, with certain exceptions, where bail was withdrawn for reasons extraneous to this case, the respondents effectively remained at liberty throughout the ensuing proceedings until their bail was withdrawn by order of the Divisional Court on 30 June 1987, the day on which the argument of the appeal before your Lordships was concluded.
Shortly after 15 September 1986 each of the several solicitors acting for one or more of the respondents was served with copies of the relevant documents, sc. the Belgian warrants and evidence and the section 102 statements, affecting his own client or clients. In anticipation of the second remand hearing on 10 November, the D.P.P. wrote to all the defence solicitors on 3 November suggesting that, for the purpose of the effective committal hearings, the respondents should be divided into three groups. On 10 November the respondents were further remanded to 22 December. The defending solicitors required to see and were in due course supplied with copies of all the section 102 statements to enable them to consider the proposed grouping. On 10 November it was made clear that the magistrate's commitments would prevent him from proceeding with the substantive hearing before the New Year. On 22 December the magistrate ordered that the cases against all the respondents be heard together, not in groups. The hearing was ordered to commence on 3 February 1987 and was then estimated to last eight weeks. The respondents were ordered to, and in due course did, notify to the D.P.P. the names of those witnesses who had made section 102 statements whom they required to be called to give oral evidence. In the event it proved possible, with the co-operation of defending counsel, to complete the hearing in half the time estimated and, as already indicated, the magistrate made his orders of committal under section 10 of the Act on 3 March 1987.
Subject to any "conditions, exceptions and qualifications" imposed pursuant to section 2 on the operation of the Act by the Order in Council which directs that the Act shall apply to Belgium, the proceedings before the magistrate were governed by sections 9 and 10 of the Act which provide, so far as presently relevant, as follows:
"9. When a fugitive criminal is brought before … the magistrate, the … magistrate shall hear the case in the same manner, and have the same jurisdiction and powers, as as near as may be, as if the prisoner were brought before him charged with an indictable offence committed in England. The … magistrate shall receive any evidence which may be tendered to show that the crime of which the prisoner is accused or alleged to have been convicted is an offence of a political character or is not an extradition crime.
10. In the case of a fugitive criminal accused of an extradition crime, if the foreign warrant authorising the arrest of such...
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