Sandor Atilla Rumpler v The Regional Court in Budapest, Hungary
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Fordham J |
| Judgment Date | 08 February 2024 |
| Neutral Citation | [2024] EWHC 258 (Admin) |
| Court | King's Bench Division (Administrative Court) |
| Docket Number | Case No: AC-2023-LON-002485 |
[2024] EWHC 258 (Admin)
Fordham J
Case No: AC-2023-LON-002485
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
KING'S BENCH DIVISION
ADMINISTRATIVE COURT
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Jonathan Swain (instructed by Sonn Macmillan Walker) for the Appellant
Hannah Burton (instructed by CPS) for the Respondent
Hearing date: 8.2.24
Judgment as delivered in open court at the hearing
Approved Judgment
I direct that no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic.
Fordham J Note: This judgment was produced and approved by the Judge, after using voice-recognition software during an ex tempore judgment.
Introduction
The Appellant is aged 38 and is wanted for extradition to Hungary. That is in conjunction with a conviction Extradition Arrest Warrant issued on 3 February 2021 and certified on 30 October 2021. He was arrested on it on 11 November 2021 and was promptly released on conditional bail including a tagged curfew. The index offending had taken place years earlier, on 17 December 2013, in an H&M store in Budapest. The Appellant and his two accomplices stole clothes worth the UK equivalent of £230, using an aluminium-lined bag. The security guard apprehended him and the clothes were recovered. The Appellant has a number of other convictions of dishonest acquisitive offending in Hungary, Italy and the Netherlands. Extradition was ordered by DJ Sternberg (“the Judge”) on 6 September 2022 after an oral hearing on 3 August 2022 at which the Appellant gave oral evidence. The Judge made unimpeachable findings of fact, discussed the evidence in detail, and made an unassailable finding of fugitivity. The Judge found, as an evaluative balancing exercise, that the public interest considerations in favour of extradition outweighed those capable of counting against extradition. Permission to appeal was granted at an oral hearing on 16 June 2023.
The sole issue is Article 8 ECHR and whether extradition would be a disproportionate interference with the private and/or family life rights of any person or persons. That question turns on the familiar Article 8 evaluative balancing exercise. It would engage the principle in Love v USA [2018] EWHC 172 (Admin) [2018] 1 WLR 2889 at §26: asking whether ‘crucial factors should have weighed so significantly differently as to make the decision wrong’. But, as is accepted by Ms Burton in light of the qualifying remand position, it now requires a rebalancing “afresh” on the updated picture (cf. Vidak v Hungary [2023] EWHC 1108 (Admin) at §36). It requires looking at each key feature and, perhaps most of all, considering their combined effect. I am grateful to both Counsel for their focused assistance as I undertake this task.
In Hungary
What happened in Hungary was this. The Appellant was convicted of the December 2013 theft, at a trial in May 2014 at which he was present. He was then sentenced to a 10 month custodial sentence for that offence, which was suspended. The sentence did not come into effect until 17 October 2014. Meanwhile, on 7 June 2014, he committed another theft (which in due course led to a July 2017 conviction and a distinct 10 month suspended sentence). Then, on 12 May 2016, he committed a theft with violence (which in due course led to a March 2017 conviction and a distinct 7 month custodial sentence). This reoffending was the context for a decision, on 14 October 2016, to activate the 10 month suspended sentence for the December 2013 theft. That activation took place, at a hearing on that date, which the Appellant attended. On that same day, notification obligations were imposed on him and communicated to him. The activated sentence did not come into force until 20 March 2017. In the meantime, the Appellant had committed a November 2016 aggravated theft in the Netherlands (which in due course led to a February 2017 conviction and 7 day custodial sentence there); and then a December 2016 offence of receiving stolen goods in Italy (which in due course led to a February 2019 conviction and 6 month suspended sentence there). The Appellant was back in Hungary by February 2017. His activated 10 month sentence was due to come into force on 20 March 2017.
On 22 February 2017, the Appellant left Hungary for the UK. He did not comply with the notification obligations, failing to tell the authorities that he was leaving and failing to notify an address. He left Hungary, as the Judge found, to avoid the consequences of his offending. He left Hungary, and came to the UK, as a fugitive. The Hungarian authorities did not know where he was, or have an address for him, because of his breach of those notification requirements. On 6 June 2017, acting with the Appellant's knowledge, a Hungarian lawyer made an application to the Hungarian court to postpone serving the activated 10 month custodial sentence. That application was rejected on 19 June 2017. On 27 June 2017 the Appellant was required to surrender to the Hungarian Prison Service to serve the 10 month custodial sentence. His ten months custody would have lasted until the end of April 2018. He failed to surrender to serve the sentence. He remained here in the UK, at a location unknown to the Hungarian authorities. A domestic warrant was issued in Hungary on 1 September 2017. He could not be found. An international arrest warrant was subsequently issued on 4 January 2021 and the Extradition Arrest Warrant followed, the following month. The Judge unassailably found an absence of any significant delay attributable to the Hungarian authorities and the absence of any culpable delay on their part.
In the UK
What has happened in the UK is this. The Appellant has lived and worked, openly as the Judge found, in the UK since February 2017. He has no convictions for any offending since February 2017. He has had ongoing contact, remotely, with his now 12 year old daughter. He had parental responsibility for the daughter, and had left her in Hungary living with his mother, her grandmother. He has not returned to see her in Hungary. He has, however, provided ongoing financial support to his mother and his daughter. He began a personal relationship with his partner in December 2021 and they cohabited from April 2022. The Judge accepted that theirs is a genuine relationship, and that they plan to marry and start a family. The partner's evidence records that she began the relationship with the Appellant in full knowledge of the matters for which extradition is sought. He had been arrested, in these extradition proceedings and tagged, the previous month (November 2021). As the Judge found, the Appellant had made an application for settled status as an EU citizen based on his presence in the UK which had not yet been granted. That remains the position.
I have referred to the couple cohabiting from April 2022. That was the case until 25 May 2023. I am told by Mr Swain, and I accept, that on that date the Appellant took the following action. He flagged down a police car. He told the police that he had no intention of returning to the address required by his bail conditions. He was arrested and has been on remand ever since. As to that, Counsel agree about three things. First, that it is right to treat this as having been deliberate action by the Appellant. Secondly, that I do not have evidence as to what may have caused or motivated him to take that action. Thirdly, that it has had the effect of giving rise to qualifying remand which serves the reduce the time to be served in Hungary. Up to 25 May 2023, the Appellant had served one year 6 months and 15 days (560 days) on his tagged curfew. Since then, until today, he has now served 8 months and 15 days (246 days) of qualifying remand. This has the consequence that, as at today, he has some 6 weeks to serve in Hungary.
The Appeal
Mr Swain for the Appellant relies on a number of features, individually and cumulatively. Of particular prominence, alongside all the circumstances of the case, are these. First, there is the overall passage of time since the index offending in December 2013 which is now more than a decade old, and which has Lady Hale's familiar dual tendency to reduce the public interest in extradition and strengthen the factors capable of weighing against extradition ( HH v Italy [2012] UKSC 25 at §8). Mr Swain says the Judge focused on the passage of time in terms of whether there was any delay of any significance ‘on the part of the Hungarian authorities’, and whether any delay was ‘culpable’ on their part. He urges focus on a broader question which is simply a function of the overall passage of time and the “age” of the index offending. Linked to all that, there are the impacts and implications of that overall passage of time. There is the Appellant's living and working openly here, and the genuine relationship with the partner, together with the other ties to the UK.
Next, and connected to all this, there are the impacts of extradition on a settled private...
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