S v The Court of Bologna (an Italian Judicial Authority)
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Mr Justice Foskett: |
| Judgment Date | 25 May 2010 |
| Neutral Citation | [2010] EWHC 1184 (Admin) |
| Date | 25 May 2010 |
| Court | Queen's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | CO/2776/2010,Case No: CO/2776/2010 |
[2010] EWHC 1184 (Admin)
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London,
WC2A 2LL
Mr Justice Foskett
Case No: CO/2776/2010
Richard Mobbs (instructed by Knights Solicitors) for the Appellant
Aaron Watkins (instructed by CPS Extradition Unit) for the Respondent
Hearing date: 19th May2010
HTML VERSION OF JUDGMENT
Introduction
This is an appeal under section 26 of the Extradition Act 2003 by S ('the Appellant'), who is a Moroccan national now aged 31, against an extradition order made by District Judge Riddle at the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court on 22 February 2010 pursuant to a European Arrest Warrant ('the warrant') issued by the Italian Judicial Authority, the Court of Bologna, on 22 June 2009.
Italy is a Category 1 territory and the case falls under Part 1 of the Act.
The power of this court to interfere with the decision of the Judge is set out in section 27. The High Court may allow the appeal only if the conditions in subsection (3) or subsection (4) are satisfied. Subsection (4) does not arise in this case. The conditions in subsection (3) are that the judge ought to have decided a question before him differently and if he had decided the question in the way he ought to have done, he would have been required to order the person's discharge.
So far as this court's approach to the appeal is concerned, as Sedley LJ said in Wiejak v Olsztyn Circuit Court of Poland [2007] EWHC 2123 (Admin), this court must consider the District Judge's reasons with great care in order to decide whether it differs from the decision made, but so far as findings of fact are concerned, at least where the District Judge has heard evidence, those findings should ordinarily be respected in their entirety.
The warrant and its background
The Appellant is wanted by the Italian authorities in order to prosecute him for supplying cocaine and hashish to a number of named individuals. The offences are alleged to have taken place from the summer of 2007 until January 2008 when he was arrested. The suggestion, I understand, is that the Appellant admitted his involvement and after a period in custody in Italy was released under house arrest. Indeed in the papers before the court is a translation of a deposition taken on 22 October 2008 at the Public Prosecutor's Office in Bologna when the Appellant, with his lawyer present, made various admissions concerning the allegations. He also asserted that he was a police informer.
Whilst under house arrest and awaiting trial, he fled from Italy and travelled by train to France, by air to Sweden and then Denmark, then to Ireland before coming to London en route for Canada. He was using a false passport and it was that that invited the attention of the immigration authorities here. It appears that he was arrested in June 2009 and convicted at Isleworth Crown Court of possession of a false identity document on 3 July 2009. He was sentenced to 9 months imprisonment.
On his release from that sentence he was to be deported to Morocco. It was at that time that he was arrested on the warrant referred to in paragraph I above. He was arrested on 16 September 2009 at Heathrow Airport and has been held in custody whilst the extradition proceedings have been proceeding.
The extradition proceedings
A final hearing of those proceedings took place on 3 February this year and the reserved judgment of the District Judge was given on 22 February.
The District Judge had heard oral evidence from the Appellant and received a report from Dr Cosmo Hallström, a Consultant Psychiatrist, to which I will refer in more detail later. Dr Hallström was not available to give oral evidence at the final hearing because he was abroad.
The District Judge also had certain documentary material to consider.
The issues raised before the District Judge and the essence of the Appellant's case
against extradition
Whilst the matter is put on effectively three different bases, the essential argument here is that the Appellant is too great a suicide risk to make it appropriate for him to be extradited.
For reasons I will turn to shortly, the District Judge rejected this and held that the extradition was compatible with the Appellant's rights under the ECHR and did not represent a breach of section 25 of the Extradition Act 2003.
In his written decision, the District Judge mentioned a concern "shared by several of [his] colleagues at an apparent increase in the number of extradition cases when the potential for suicide is argued." That increase appears to have been relatively recent.
Bearing in mind that this sentiment comes from the court that at present bears the most significant responsibility for determining the outcome of extradition cases, it is an anecdotal statistic that commands respect. Having conducted a search on an established legal website I have discovered the following cases reported at appellate level between March 2009 and March 2010: R, (on the application of Prosser) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWHC 845 (Admin); Okruch v Poland [2010] EWHC 1047 (Admin); Howes (Kerry) v HM Advocate 2010 SLT 337; Lendvai v Hungary [2009] EWHC 3431 (Admin); Spanovic v Croatia [2009] EWHC 723 (Admin); Yuen v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2009] EWHC 573 (Admin) and Jansons v Latvia [2009] EWHC 1845 (Admin). I am, of course, unable to say whether the list is exhaustive. The issue has arisen in immigration cases also as the case of J v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2005] EWCA Civ 629 demonstrates.
Obviously, as the Judge himself acknowledged, every case has to be judged on its merits and Mr Richard Mobbs, perfectly correctly, cautioned against being influenced unduly by a "floodgates" argument. However, it does at least highlight the need for circumspection in evaluating the evidence when such an issue is raised in case there is a perception that raising the issue an easy way of avoiding extradition. As ought to be apparent from a perusal of the reported cases, any such perception would be erroneous. The case of Prosser, R (on the application of) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2010] EWHC 845 (Admin), to which I drew the attention of Counsel, is one such case. I will return to one practical aspect of this in due course (see paragraph 62).
As foreshadowed above, the Appellant's case is that there is cogent psychiatric evidence showing that his mental state is such that any order for extradition and the subsequent act of extradition would cause him considerable mental suffering and lead him to self-harm and to make further suicide attempts. The history of self-harm and suicide attempts to which I will refer below, together with the psychiatric report of Dr Hallström, show, it is argued, that he is "at significant risk of self-harm and potentially suicidal". It was submitted, against that background, that extradition would constitute a breach of the Appellant's rights under Articles 3 and 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights and be contrary to section 25 of the Extradition Act 2003.
I will return to these arguments when I have reviewed the evidence before the District Judge and recorded his conclusions.
The evidence before the District Judge
I have already indicated that the oral evidence came from the Appellant. In addition to the report from Dr Hallström the Judge was invited to take account of the written evidence of Detective Constable Ade Onabajo (who arrested the Appellant on 16 September) and, in particular, a number of incident reports. I will set out the sequence of events about which the Judge heard or read.
On 16 September 2009, when he was arrested, DC Onabajo noted that the Appellant's left wrist and upper arm were bandaged. He was informed that the Appellant had slit his wrist and cut his upper arm two days before when he was told he was going to be extradited.
Dr Hallström's report recorded that on 24 September, when he was received into custody at Wandsworth, it was noted he had no medical problems, that he did not misuse drugs and had a normal mental state.
On 30 September 2009, whilst in the custody area at the magistrates' court the Appellant cut his neck and left arm with a razor blade and was subsequently taken to hospital.
On 4 October 2009 he was found collapsed on the floor. He had not eaten for four days and had been on a hunger strike.
On 19 October 2009 he swallowed four razor blades.
On 23 October 2009 he attempted to hang himself during the night, but was found by his cell mate. There was bruising around his throat and deep marks to his neck and scarring to his forearms. Dr Hallström's report noted (presumably from the prison records) that he said he felt stressed and that he had intended to end his life. He said that he feared being deported to Italy and said that he would be killed by the authorities and he did not want to return to an Italian jail. He wanted to be returned to Morocco. He had been unable to contact his wife.
On 25 November 2009 he self-harmed, making superficial cuts to the right side of his neck.
On 30 November 2009 he self-harmed, cutting his head.
On 1 December he was seen in prison by a doctor because he had talked about an evil spirit inside him that wanted to drink his blood and there were concerns that he might be psychotic. He was keen, Dr Hallström records, to be transferred back to a different wing. There was an obvious laceration to the right side of his neck. He could not remember much about it, but said there was a Jinn inside him who wanted to drink his blood. Beyond that he wasn't able to...
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