Jerzy Maciej Podraza (now Wrzosek) v District Court In Krakow, Poland

This is the judgment of the court.

To assist the parties and the public to follow the main lines of the court’s reasoning, the text is divided into six sections, as set out in the table of contents above. The table is hyperlinked to aid swift navigation.

This is an appeal against an extradition order.

The appeal is against the order made by District Judge Cieciora (“the Judge”) on 5 March 2025, following a hearing at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 10 February 2025, in which she ordered the extradition of the appellant back to Poland. The appellant is Jerzy Maciej Podraza (he has changed his name by deed poll to Wrzosek). He is wanted in Poland to serve an 18-month custodial sentence for dishonesty.

The respondent is the District Court in Kraków, Poland. It seeks his extradition pursuant to an arrest warrant issued on 31 July 2024 and certified by the National Crime Agency (“NCA”) on 9 August 2024. The appellant does not consent to his extradition. He is represented by Mr Henley of counsel; the respondent by Mr Squibbs of counsel. The court is grateful to them for their assistance and submissions.

The extradition order is made under section 21 of the Extradition Act 2003 (“ the Act ”). Poland is a Category 1 territory under the Act and thus extradition is governed by Part 1 of the statute, with the initial decision to be made by a district judge, as has happened here. Such an extradition order may be appealed to the High Court with leave (under section 26).

article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”)

abuse of process.

In this case, the sequence of events is particularly important and requires setting down in some detail. It need not be exhaustive.

The appellant was born in Chrzanow, Poland on 21 February 1980 and is now aged 46. In June 2000, when he was aged 20, he committed two offences in Poland. These were forgery and fraud, the criminality involving the obtaining of telecommunication services using a false certificate of employment the appellant had forged. The offences under the Polish Criminal Code are:

“Art. 270.1 of the Criminal Code: A person who forges, counterfeits or alters a document intending it to be accepted as genuine or uses it as genuine, shall be liable to a fine, restriction of personal liberty or imprisonment for a term from 3 months to 5 years.

On 19 September 2003, the District Court in Chrzanow imposed a suspended custodial sentence of 18 months’ to which conditions were attached. The appellant was obliged to comply with the probation service under a supervision order and to pay compensation.

In July 2004, he left Poland for the United Kingdom and appears to have relocated on the Isle of Man. He disengaged from his supervision order in the summer of 2004 and “cut off contact”, as the further information states. Consequently, the Polish court activated the suspended sentence order because the appellant “evaded supervision and left his place of residence”. A person under supervision in Poland “may not leave the place of residence without the court’s consent” (ibid., para 3). He therefore has 18 months’ custody to serve in Poland.

On 24 August 2007, the respondent issued a European Arrest Warrant. Extradition proceedings began in the United Kingdom, but the appellant failed to attend the hearing at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 15 October 2008. A warrant not backed for bail was issued by the Westminster extradition court. It appears that the appellant continued to live on the Isle of Man, but the arrest warrant was not executed and he was not arrested until 2024.

While he did not return to Poland to face legal proceedings, on 25 October 2018 he instructed a lawyer in Poland to apply for the enforcement of the outstanding custodial sentence to be dismissed. The application was refused by the Polish court. On 4 October 2021, his lawyer petitioned the President of Poland for clemency. The view of the trial court at Chrzanow was sought. It opposed the petition. The petition was refused.

On 26 July 2024, a justice of the peace at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court issued an arrest warrant under the Bail Act 1976 for the arrest of the appellant for the offence of not appearing when bailed.

On 29 July 2024, the respondent was informed by Interpol Manchester that the appellant may be in the United Kingdom. The respondent issued a fresh warrant, now an arrest warrant under the post-Brexit arrangements under the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (“TACA”). The fresh arrest warrant for extradition was issued on 31 July 2024 and less than two weeks later certified by the NCA on 9 August 2024.

On 23 September 2024, a justice of the peace on the Isle of Man authorised the appellant’s arrest under the July 2024 Bail Act warrant issued by the Westminster Magistrates’ Court. Therefore, the English court Bail Act warrant was “backed” by a judicial officer on the Isle of Man. That having taken place, the appellant could be arrested in pursuance of the now locally authorised Bail Act warrant. On 13 October 2024, the local police attended the appellant’s address in the Isle of Man. On being told he was under arrest, the appellant attempted to walk back into his house and shut the door on the officer. PC Mackenzie took hold of his arm while the appellant continued to struggle. He was handcuffed and taken into custody.

It transpired that he did not attend the extradition hearing at the Westminster Magistrates' Court in October 2008 as he had a court hearing in criminal proceedings around the same time in the Isle of Man. The English court accepted that he had a reasonable excuse for his initial absence in the extradition hearing. However, he had failed to surrender to lawful custody within a reasonable time after that, or in fact at all until his arrest was finally effected in 2024. Consequently, he pleaded guilty to an offence under section 7 of the Bail Act 1978 in that he failed under section 6(2) “to surrender to custody at the appointed place as soon after the appointed time as is reasonably practicable”. He had been unlawfully at large in the United Kingdom from 2008 until his arrest in 2024. The court imposed a custodial sentence of 8 weeks for the breach.

He was later released on bail again and given a condition of residence in Coventry. He began working in Coventry and his landlord has provided a positive reference (dated 13 January 2025).

The extradition hearing took place on 10 February 2025, and the extradition order was made on 5 March 2025. He filed grounds of appeal dated 10 March 2025, perfected them on 24 March 2025, with permission granted on 2 October 2025, leading to the appeal hearing before me on 29 January 2026.

allow the appeal;

dismiss the appeal.

The court may allow the appeal only if the conditions in subsection (3) or the conditions in subsection (4) are satisfied.

the appropriate judge ought to have decided a question before him at the extradition hearing differently;

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.

The proper approach to the application of the appeal test was considered by the Divisional Court in Love v USA [2018] EWHC 172 (Admin) (“ Love ”). The court said at para 26:

“26. The true approach is more simply expressed by requiring the appellate court to decide whether the decision of the district judge was wrong. What was said in Celinski and Re B (A Child) are apposite, even if decided in the context of article 8. In effect, the test is the same here. The appellate court is entitled to stand back and say that a question ought to have been decided differently because the overall evaluation was wrong: crucial factors should have been weighed so significantly differently as to make the decision wrong, such that the appeal in consequence should be allowed.”

The court must consider the ECHR compatibility of a proposed extradition order, particularly in respect of article 8 and the associated proportionality question. In addition to the recent Supreme Court case of Andrysiewicz v Poland [2025] UKSC 23 (“ Andrysiewicz ”) (see particularly paras 31-43), I have considered the seminal cases of Norris v United States of America [2010] UKSC 9 (“ Norris ”), HH v Deputy Prosecutor of the Italian Republic, Genoa [2012] UKSC 25 (“ HH ”), and Celinski v Poland [2015] EWHC 1274 (Admin) (“ Celinski ”). In Celinski , Lord Thomas CJ said in the Divisional Court (para 13):

“13. Sixth in relation to conviction warrants:

The judge at the extradition hearing will seldom have the detailed knowledge of the proceedings or of the background or previous offending history of the offender which the sentencing judge had before him.

Each member state is entitled to set its own sentencing regime and levels of sentence. Provided it is in accordance with the Convention, it is not for a UK judge to second guess that policy. The prevalence and significance of certain types of offending are matters for the requesting state and judiciary to decide; currency conversions may tell little of the real monetary value of items stolen or of sums defrauded. For example, if a state has a sentencing regime under which suspended sentences are passed on conditions such as regular reporting and such a regime results in such sentences being passed much more readily than the UK, then a court in the UK should respect the importance to courts in that state of seeking to enforce non-compliance with the terms of a suspended sentence.

“But I have concluded that it is not open to us, as the requested court, to question the decision of the requesting authorities to issue an arrest warrant at this stage. This is their case, not ours. Our duty is to give effect to the procedure which they have decided to invoke and the proper place for leniency to be exercised, if there are grounds for leniency, is Italy.”

Reduced to its bare minimum, the article 8 issue is that identified by Lady Hale in HH at para 8(3):

“The question is always whether the interference with the private and family lives of the extraditee and other members is outweighed by the public interest in extradition.”

The appellant’s prime submission on abuse of process is that the failure to send a police officer to a known bail address and “do nothing for 17 years” to enforce a bench warrant is an abuse of the process of the court which undermines “the timely enforcement of justice and public confidence in the extradition process”. Against this, the respondent submits that the basis for exercising the abuse of process jurisdiction has not been established.

Counsel have not provided the court with comprehensive submissions of law about the content of the legal principles arising in abuse of process claims in extradition proceedings. That is not a criticism. At this stage, I need only confine myself to the chief features of the governing law. It is neither necessary nor desirable to offer an exhaustive review.

The starting-point is that abuse of process is a residual discretion that sits outside the confines of the governing statute and exercisable only in very limited circumstances ( Belbin v France [2015] EWHC 149 (Admin) (“ Belbin ”), para 59). Complaints and challenges that can be determined within the statutory regime should be. Abuse of process may be established where forensic unfairness arises in the hearing or due to gross breaches of fundamental principles of substantial justice or the rule of law (see Nicholls, Montgomery and Knowles on The Law of Extradition and Mutual Assistance (4 th edn., 2025) at para 5.179).

The prime authority relied on by the appellant to make good his abuse of process submission is R(USA) v Bow Street Magistrates’ Court [2007] 1 WLR. It is a judicial review claim frequently referred to as “ Tollman ” as the proposed extraditees were Mr and Mrs Tollman. The requesting state withdrew its request under the Extradition Act 1989 and reissued under the new statutory regime of the 2003 Act . It was alleged that the United Kingdom as executing state provided assistance to the United States to draft the new arrest warrants. The Judge in the lower court ordered disclosure relevant to such assistance to assess whether the process of the court was abused.

The Divisional Court (Lord Phillips CJ and Cresswell J) held that under the Extradition Act 2003 , extradition could be refused when the request was motivated by “extraneous circumstances”. They may include requests motivated by improper motives. If extradition was challenged on grounds of abuse of process, before acceding to an extradition request, the judge had a duty to decide whether the court’s process was being abused. It had to remain alert to the possibility of abuse allegations being made by way of delaying tactics. No steps should be taken to investigate an alleged abuse of process unless the court was satisfied that there was reason to believe that an abuse might have taken place. The court should insist on the abusive conduct being identified with particularity, before proceeding to consider whether that conduct, if established, was capable of amounting to an abuse of process. If reasonable grounds exist for believing that such conduct might have occurred, the court should refuse the extradition request unless satisfied the abuse had not occurred. If there was reason to believe that an abuse of process might have occurred, the court should call upon the requesting authority or state for whatever information or evidence is required to determine whether an abuse of process had occurred.

However, the judge was not in a position to order the authority or state to disclose information or evidence if it was not prepared to do so. On such refusal, the judge should evaluate the available material and decide whether, on the particular facts, in light of the non-disclosure, the procedure would fail to satisfy the requirements of fairness. If the conclusion was that to grant the application for extradition would involve an abuse of process, the court should discharge the person whose extradition was sought.

Some years after Tollman , the Divisional Court returned to the question of abuse of process in extradition proceedings in “ Belbin ”. Aikens LJ stated:

“44. However, whether it is the prosecuting authority’s behaviour or that of another entity that constitutes the Judicial Authority of the requesting state that is being criticised, it will only amount to an abuse of the extradition process if the statutory regime in the EA is being “usurped” (see [97] of Bermingham ). It would, for example, be “usurped” by bad faith on the part of the Judicial Authority in the extradition proceedings or a deliberate manipulation of the extradition process. But any issues relating to the internal procedure of the requesting state are outside the implied abuse of process jurisdiction concerning extradition proceedings: see [36] of Symeou . Moreover, as is clear from the decision of this court in Federal Public Prosecutor, Brussels, Belgium v Bartlett [2012] EWHC 2480 (Admin) , this “usurpation” of the statutory extradition regime has to result in the extradition being “unfair” and “unjust” to the requested person. In this regard it has also to be shown that, as a result of the “usurpation” of the statutory regime, the requested person will be unfairly prejudiced in his subsequent challenge to extradition in this country or unfairly prejudiced in the proceedings in the requesting country if surrendered there.

We wish to emphasise that the circumstances in which the court will consider exercising its implied “abuse of process” jurisdiction in extradition cases are very limited. It will not do so if, first, other bars to extradition are available, because it is a residual, implied jurisdiction. Secondly, the court will only exercise the jurisdiction if it is satisfied, on cogent evidence, that the Judicial Authority concerned has acted in such a way as to “usurp” the statutory regime of the EA or its integrity has been impugned. We say “cogent evidence” because, in the context of the European Arrest Warrant, the UK courts will start from the premise, as set out in the Framework Decision of 2002, that there must be mutual trust between Judicial Authorities, although we accept that when the emanation of the Judicial Authority concerned is a prosecuting authority, the UK court is entitled to examine its actions with “rigorous scrutiny”. Thirdly, the court has to be satisfied that the abuse of process will cause prejudice to the requested person, either in the extradition process in this country or in the requesting state if he is surrendered.”

Therefore, it seems to me that there are two broad routes to establishing an abuse of process in extradition cases (without needing to consider whether this taxonomy is exhaustive). First, bad faith; second, system integrity. I consider each in turn.

I should say that the question of resultant unfairness in the criminal proceedings in the requesting state has not been advanced. The appellant was convicted lawfully in Poland and a custodial sentence, originally suspended, has been activated. Thus, the focus is on the consequences for proceedings in this country.

In R (Bermingham) v Director SFO [2007] QB 727 (“ Bermingham ”), Laws LJ provided examples of bad faith, such as the pursuing of an extradition request when the prosecutor knows it lacks sound basis or deliberate delay to benefit from a different statutory regime. In McKinnon v United States [2008] UKHL 59 , the court considered interference with due process through undue pressure by threat of harsher sentencing (per Lord Brown, para 33). The nature of the process abuse will be highly fact-specific.

Bad faith is a grave allegation. Yet sometimes it is established. However, it must be established on evidence, including reasonable inference from evidence, not speculation. The appellant has squarely raised the question of abuse of process, and thus it is something this court must consider with requisite seriousness. I do. The basis twin bases of bad faith are that (1) there has been a dearth of information from the respondent, what amounts to a “breach of the duty of candour”, it is submitted; (2) the files in the United Kingdom relating to the original arrest warrant have been lost.

On (1), I follow the approach in Tollman . There has been no application for this court to request further information from the respondent. The appellant’s counsel said that the appellant’s solicitors had asked for more information about the 2008 extradition proceedings, but “some of it was requested at a late stage” and it was accepted that on behalf of the appellant “something more forensic could have been produced as a disclosure request document”. The evidence is what it is. The parties have sought a decision on the material available.

However, I am mindful of Tollman , and cognisant of the court’s overarching duty to supervise its own procedure. The purpose includes, as the Supreme Court very recently said when considering the illegality defence in negligence, the high need to maintain “the integrity of the justice system” ( Lewis-Ranwell v G4S [2026] UKSC 2 , paras 86, 88). Tollman holds that no step need be taken unless there are reasonable grounds to believe an abuse occurred. To that end the court asked for clarity about the evidence relied on to establish abuse of process and the particulars of the abuse generally.

In the appellant’s skeleton argument, it is said that it was “unknown” whether the failure to arrest the appellant “was incompetence or a deliberate usurpation of the extradition proceedings by either the Respondent or WMC or CPS or SOCA or NCA or the Isle of Man authorities or their courts or a combination of all or any of them”. Incompetence is not typically bad faith (subject to extreme exceptions, perhaps).

On (2), it is submitted that because the files have been lost, it is an inference that “someone” in authority has acted in bad faith and there is a “lack of candour”. When asked by the court whether the loss of the files itself was an act of bad faith, Mr Henley accepted that he could not “say that the judicial authorities have acted in bad faith”, continuing, “We do not know if there is something else behind the lost files.” In other words, it is unknown if there is bad faith behind the loss of documentation.

I can deal with this in short order. The submission answers itself: the fact that one does not know why documentation cannot be found does not lend itself to a safe or reasonable inference that anyone has acted in bad faith. The dangers of speculation are illustrated by the submissions in this case. In the appellant’s skeleton argument (para 15), he submits that the court should assume that there was no arrest warrant issued under the Bail Act 1976 for his failure to attend the extradition hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in 2008 and that therefore “the 2024 warrant was the first time that a bench warrant was applied for”. However, subsequent to the filing of the skeleton argument, the 2008 bench warrant was located and filed and served. Should the court have acceded to the appellant’s initial submission and made the inference he sought, it would have been on a factually false basis.

I am far from persuaded that this amounts to reasonable grounds to believe that an abuse of process has taken place. Supporting this conclusion is the fact that no suggestion whatsoever has been advanced for why anyone in authority would be determined to act maliciously towards this appellant and conceal or destroy evidence in his case. It is here that the appellant’s chief point - the £85-fraud-only point - cuts across such conjecture. It makes no sense given the nature of the offending in Poland that judicial or criminal justice officials themselves would set out manipulate the procedure and act in a way tantamount to being criminal by deliberately destroying or hiding evidence. The simple explanation is by far the most likely: over the years, unsatisfactory though it is, the files have been misplaced. But that is not the end of the matter. The court must be attentive to questions of system integrity. I turn to this.

Statutory regime

This court has said that the rationale for the existence of the exceptional abuse of process jurisdiction includes protecting the court from manipulation in a way that it fundamentally unfair to an extraditee or that may be oppressive ( Office of Prosecutor General of Turin v Barone [2010] EWHC 3004 (Admin) , para 18). But the same core principles apply: clarity is needed about the nature of the manipulation. The flaw in the appellant’s submission under this head is that he has not demonstrated any tactical or forensic advantage gained by the respondent because of the differing statutory regimes or sought by the respondent. Unlike in Tollman , the respondent did not withdraw the 1989 warrant in favour of one under the 2003 act. Instead, the respondent was actively pursuing the appellant’s extradition under the previous statutory regime when the appellant absconded from the extradition proceedings. The appellant has not been able to identify any forensic advantage between the two routes gained by the respondent in any event, nor that the respondent sought any.

He submits in his further submissions after the hearing that “absent information from the 26 July 2024 warrant … the inference is that the lay magistrate may have been misled into believing that the date of failing to surrender was 26 July 2024.” There is no evidence to support that inference. It is speculation. It was open to the appellant to challenge the warrant. He did not. He asserts that there “appears to be a manipulation of the Isle of Man Authorities and the lay magistrate in WMC”. However, “appears” is conjectural. There is no sound evidential base to support such an inference; it is not a reasonable or plausible one to make. Instead, the appellant pleaded guilty to the Bail Act offence he was unquestionably guilty of. Indeed, he concedes – and has little option but to concede – that “it might be said that the breach of bail was outstanding in spite of the new TACA warrant and indeed he was sentenced to 8 weeks custody for that breach”.

Further, as the respondent submits, there is nothing to indicate that the appellant would not have been extradited under the 1989 act, a submission the appellant did not contest at the oral hearing. The highpoint of the appellant’s submission is that in 2008 the Isle of Man did not recognise the 2003 Act (asserted without proof) and extradition would have been under “a different statutory regime, maybe the 1989 Act ”. It was claimed that if there was an ensuing Part 2 request, you would not have the same mutual trust. About all this and whether there is any forensic disadvantage to the appellant, his counsel said, “I readily accept it is speculation as I do not have the answers.” It is claimed “it would appear that a diplomatic request under the Extradition Act would be required”. No explanation has been provided why it would not be forthcoming save the speculation about some possible, but baseless, manipulation of magistrates at Westminster and the Isle of Man.

This is not a valid ground to impugn the extradition order made by the Judge. To submit “this is classic Belbin type abuse” is wrong. No rational basis for prejudice has been identified as opposed to speculated about.

I add under this subdivision that the appellant criticises the English court for the 2024 arrest warrant having been put before a lay justice of the peace at Westminster Magistrates’ Court rather than a district judge “fully cognisant with extradition law and practice”. It was then put before a justice of the peace in the Isle of Man to further authorise (back) the appellant’s arrest within its territory. There is nothing in this point. The question for the justice of the peace at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in 2024 was whether to issue an arrest warrant under the Bail Act 1976 for the appellant’s failure to attend a court hearing in 2008, something a lay magistrate is perfectly able to understand and determine. It is submitted that a fresh Bail Act warrant should not have been issued in 2024 as the justice of the peace “did not know what is going on”. The appellant was still in breach of his bail: that was what was “going on”.

Execution of warrant

The appellant submits that the failure to arrest him as required by the 2008 warrant is in itself such a flagrant breach of proper practice and procedure that it amounts to an abuse of process, either in itself or combined with the delay that has ensued. This is because a warrant issued under the Bail Act is “mandatory order”, the appellant submits, with a mandatory duty to arrest and “not just feel his collar if you happen to come across him.”

I can agree that the appellant should have been arrested for deliberately failing to surrender to lawful custody as soon as reasonably practicable. But I cannot think that the integrity of the extradition system is fundamentally shaken or undermined by the bald fact of a failure by the executing state to arrest a requested person in a timely fashion following his deliberate refusal to comply with his bail obligations. The real point is the consequences of the failure (“the effect” in Belbin terms) and the associated delay. Delay, however, can be squarely considered within the compass of the statutory regime (see below).

Delay as abuse

No authority for the proposition that delay in itself can be an abuse was put before the court. In its skeleton argument, the respondent cites Scott v Government of the Commonwealth of Australia [2020] EWHC 2924 (Admin) (“ Scott ”). In that case an oppression bar was raised. The Divisional Court said at para 69:

“In Kila v Governor of HMP Brixton [2004] EWHC 2824 (Admin) Collins J said that “the mere fact of delay is unlikely in most cases, indeed the vast majority of cases, to justify a decision that to return would be oppressive. There must be something more than mere delay.” In this case the “something more” can be summarised as being: (a) the enormous delay, now 48 years since the first of these and 44 years since the last, a period which includes nearly 20 years which the judge found to be culpable delay; (b) the fact that the Appellant is now 88 years old and in less than robust physical or mental health.”

In Scott , the Divisional Court referred to the much-cited words of Lord Diplock in Kakis v Cyprus [1978] 1 WLR 779 (“ Kakis ”) at 782:

“Delay in the commencement or conduct of extradition proceedings which is brought about by the accused himself by fleeing the country, concealing his whereabouts or evading arrest cannot, in my view, be relied upon as a ground for holding it to be either unjust or oppressive to return him. Any difficulties that he may encounter in the conduct of his defence in consequence of the delay due to such causes are of his own choice and making. Save in the most exceptional circumstances it would be neither unjust nor oppressive that he should be required to accept them.

The court in Kakis varied in approach to responsibility for delay, with Lord Keith and Lord Edmund-Davies dissenting on this question (pointed out by the Divisional Court in Scott at para 52). However, I take from this that even where delay is relied on, except in extreme or exceptional circumstances, the court looks for something more than the piling up of years. It is of note that in Scott the 20-year culpable delay and the requested person’s ill health was insufficient. Extradition was ordered. However, the facts were very different. There were grave sexual offence allegations against the requested person’s stepdaughter while she was between the ages of three and nine. What cases such as Scott and others establish is clear: delay is built into the statutory regime in at least two ways. First, under section 14, delay can be relevant to whether extradition would be unjust or oppressive. Second, delay can be considered as an article 8 factor against extradition. I return to this legal reality shortly.

The appellant submits that what amounts to the “something more” in his case (although not framed in those precise terms) is the failure to execute the bench warrant that created a “false sense of security for some 17 years” in the appellant. It is submitted that he believed nothing would be done and the extradition proceedings would no longer be pursued. This is central to his abuse of process claim. It is necessary to carefully examine the circumstances to evaluate this submission.

The appellant never received any confirmation that the extradition proceedings were over by being withdrawn, discontinued or struck out. The Judge rejected his claim in the lower court that he believed the criminal sanction was wiped off because he had paid a fine. She found that he was fugitive. She said at paras 55-58:

“55. However, whilst I accept that he was young, and had no adult figure in his life for guidance, I do not accept that he did not appreciate the nature of his sentence. This is because a) he knew he was given a sentence of imprisonment; b) he knew that sentence was suspended, with certain conditions; c) he knew those conditions were to pay the fine and stay in touch with his probation officer; d) he did not stay in touch with his probation officer.

The Requested Person said in evidence that he did not think “that it could go so far”. I am sure that he did understand that he could go to prison; rather, he did not believe that would actually happen. Whether that is due to immaturity or not, it makes little difference; I am sure that he did know the sentence was liable to be activated if he failed to comply with the conditions.

As to what he says is a misunderstanding over the document dated 27 September 2004, that document has to be read in conjunction with the decision of the District Court in Chrzanów, dated 8 July 2004; again, I am sure that the Requested Person’s understanding was that he had avoided the additional sentence of imprisonment for non-payment of the fine, not that his entire sentence had been wiped out. Firstly the documents are clear that they only refer to imprisonment for non-payment of the fine; secondly, because the "Requested Person was still aware of the requirement to maintain contact with his probation officer and the document of 27 September is silent about that; and thirdly, I do not think it credible that he thought payment of a fine of 500PLN removed a sentence of 2 years’ imprisonment.

However, even if I am wrong about that, the Requested Person is plainly a fugitive from at least 2008, when he became aware that he was wanted to serve a sentence of imprisonment in Poland and absconded, thereby deliberately and knowingly placing himself beyond the reach of the legal process in Poland.”

He deliberately placed himself beyond the reach of the Polish legal process. He knew he had a custodial sentence to serve in Poland. He knew extradition proceedings were initiated against him in the United Kingdom. He knew that he had a duty to surrender to custody in the United Kingdom and deliberately breached that duty. He applied to the Polish court in 2018 for his custodial sentence not to be enforced and knew the Polish judicial authorities refused. He applied for Presidential clemency in 2021, which was refused because the Polish sentencing court objected. In such circumstances, the appellant cannot credibly maintain that he had a false sense of security or any rationally based security given the circumstances of the proceedings against him in Poland and the United Kingdom.

The court invited counsel to assist with the provision of any authorities for the proposition that delay in itself could amount to an abuse of process. The parties were unable to locate any such authority. This is not surprising. The consideration of delay as a bar to extradition is built into the statutory scheme. An application can be made in an appropriate case of delay under section 14 of the Act . This provides:

“14. Passage of time

committed the extradition offence (where he is accused of its commission), or

become unlawfully at large (where he is alleged to have been convicted of it)”

Therefore, in the statutory scheme Parliament has provided conditions for a bar to extradition based on the passage of time. As a counter, the appellant cites the case of Kopan v Poland [2024] EWHC 2229 (Admin) (“ Kopan ”). The appellant was wanted to stand trial for an alleged VAT fraud from some 20 years previously. However, there are very significant factual distinctions between Kopan and the instant case. Kopan was an accusation case; the appellant was not a fugitive; the 20-year delay by the judicial authorities was culpable and admitted to be so by the respondent since by 2007 the judicial authorities knew the appellant was in the United Kingdom and did not issue an arrest warrant until 2022 (per Julian Knowles J at paras 3, 14); the appellant had been diagnosed with cancer that was “very serious”, likely requiring “significant surgery and chemotherapy” (para 3: fresh evidence, unopposed).

In the instant case the Polish authorities issued a European Arrest Warrant in 2007 after the appellant in breach of his obligations broke off contact with the supervision of his criminal sentence in Poland in the summer of 2004. The Polish judicial authorities in this case are entitled to rely as a matter of comity on the British authorities to progress matters here; they were entitled to place their trust in our diligent progressing of the early request made by Poland. The judicial authorities here would take the approach towards their own request made to Poland. That is the point of mutuality.

The only real argument remaining to the appellant under this head is that the Polish authorities did not chase up the progress in this country. The appellant submits that “if a judicial authority sits on its hands or puts a telescope to a blind eye then it is likely to find that unexplained will be regarded as culpable delay.” This submission is very far from reflecting the facts of this case. Once more, the court invited the parties to supply any authorities to support the proposition that once a request has been made, judicial authorities are under a separate and independent duty to ask for updates on the progress of the request by the executing authority. The parties agree that there is none. The appellant cites Pabian v Poland [2024] EWHC 2431 (Admin) (“ Pabian ”). In that decision, Chamberlain J provides assistance on the connected but conceptually distinct point of how to approach lassitude by requested state. I come to Pabian in more detail in the next section. For present purposes, I find no support in it – or any other authority – that a requesting state has a duty to monitor and chase up the progress of its request. I concur with the respondent that such a duty would impose disproportionate and unreasonable burdens on requesting states.

To conclude on delay, I find no culpable delay by the respondent of the kind claimed by the appellant. Further, given the existing and recognised routes to deploying delay as a bar, I am not persuaded that the residual abuse of process jurisdiction can be properly invoked here as a bar to extradition due to delay.

There is no direct evidence of bad faith. There is no reasonable basis to infer bad faith. There is no identified forensic advantage demonstrated to accrue to the respondent based on the latter statutory regime, and it was the appellant’s absconding from the extradition proceedings that substantially necessitated a fresh arrest warrant under the superseding statutory regime. The failure to execute the bench warrant does not amount to a fundamental abuse of system integrity. Delay can be considered within extradition proceedings under the statutory regime and frequently is. In Belbin , Aikens LJ (para 59) explained that the court requires “cogent evidence” before exercising the abuse of process jurisdiction. There is no such evidence here. I cannot accept the appellant’s submissions that the police devised “a scheme to conceal the true length of the delay in these proceedings by probable inaction on the part of the UK authorities”. The truth is more prosaic. As noted, the appellant recognises and concedes, the appellant’s “breach of bail was outstanding”. He was sentenced to 8 weeks’ custody for his flagrant breach. It must be remembered that it was on the basis that he failed to surrender within a reasonable time, given that it was accepted he had a reasonable excuse not to attend the actual extradition hearing in 2008. He failed to surrender for many years and remained in breach of his bail. In such circumstances, it is far-fetched to suggest that the police manufactured a “scheme” to deceive the court, or needed to. The facts of the appellant’s fugitivity speak for themselves.

The appellant cites Giese v USA [2018] 4 WLR 103 (“ Giese ”), a decision delivered by Lord Burnett CJ. He said at para 23:

“23 In the domestic criminal context, proceedings will amount to an abuse of process if either it is impossible to provide a fair trial or where it is necessary to protect the integrity of the criminal justice system (see R v Maxwell (Paul) [2010] UKSC 48 ; [2011] 1 WLR 1837 per Lord Dyson JSC at para 13 and R v Crawley (Sco) [2014] EWCA Crim 1028 ; [2014] 2 Cr App R 16 , per Sir Brian Leveson P at paras 17–18). In extradition proceedings there are statutory bars in the 2003 Act to prevent an extradition to an unfair trial, and in a range of other circumstances. For these reasons most issues of abuse of process arising in extradition proceedings relate to the protection of the integrity of the system.”

The instant case is a conviction case. There is no trial for him to be extradited to. Beyond this, nothing that has procedurally occurred conceivably amounts to an abuse, manipulation or distending of the process that requires the court to step in for “the protection of the integrity of the system”.

I cannot detect any sound basis in law or on the facts to indicate a usurpation of the statutory regime in Belbin terms (para 44; Bermingham , para 97): by the respondent; by anyone else. This case is very different to Jasvins v Latvia [2020] EWHC 602 (Admin) , where the judicial authorities in Latvia reissued a warrant in a way that amounted to a collateral attack on the previous extradition proceedings.

Moreover, there is no identified unfairness or injustice accruing to the appellant ( Auzins v Latvia [2016] 4 WLR 75 , per Burnett LJ at para 44). It will be noted that the appellant has failed to identify any process unfairness or prejudice caused by the failure to enforce the bench warrant beyond the fact that he has laid down family roots in the Isle of Man. That can and will be carefully considered in his article 8 claim. However, it does not amount to an abuse of process.

Finally, the appellant submits that the court should not accede to extradition “unless it is sure that the process of this court and the court in the Isle of Man has not been abused”. I am sure there is no such abuse. I have considered all these heads of claimed abuse both individually and collectively. Having done so, I reject the appellant’s submission that the court should exercise the exceptional residual jurisdiction.

The abuse of process ground fails.

The public interest considerations in favour of extradition apply.

The appellant is a fugitive from Polish justice.

He has a custodial term of 18 months’ to serve.

He applied twice to the Polish authorities to waive his custodial sentence (2018, judicial authorities; 2021, presidential clemency), and both applications have been refused.

He absconded from extradition proceedings in the United Kingdom in 2008.

Once a fugitive in the United Kingdom, he committed a series of offences here between 2007 and 2014 (the last sentenced by the Isle of Man court in 2015).

The appellant did not leave Poland as a fugitive.

He has lived openly in the Isle of Man since 2008.

There has been a delay of 16 years (2008-2024) in executing the bench warrant despite the authorities knowing his whereabouts.

On 9 January 2014 the Polish court was informed by the appellant’s first wife of his address in the UK.

The offence is not the most serious, being an £85 fraud.

The Judge found that the offence was unlikely to result in a custodial sentence in the United Kingdom.

He has committed no offences in the United Kingdom since 2015, when he formed a new relationship with his current wife, and is thus rehabilitated.

Extradition would have a serious impact on his wife and two young children, born in 2022 and 2023.

The children are British citizens, having been born here and knowing nowhere else.

Nationality

The Judge placed considerable weight on the appellant’s family life. This naturally includes the impact on his younger two children (he also has a son living in the Isle of Man and aged approximately 20, a child with his first wife). It is submitted that the Judge failed to place any weight on the British nationality of the two younger children. To support this submission, the court was taken to the passages in HH where Lady Hale examines the question.

The starting-point of assessing the interests of the children must be this nation’s obligations having ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989. Article 3.1 provides:

“In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.”

Extradition proceedings are not the kind of family law proceedings in which child’s welfare is the paramount consideration (cf. section 1 of the Children Act 1989 ). The position is more nuanced. While the appellant relies on what Lady Hale said in HH at para 1, it is important to note that Lady Hale had introduced the question by rehearsing her judgment in ZH (Tanzania) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2011] UKSC 4 (“ ZH ”):

“11. I pointed out [in ZH ] that “despite the looseness with which these terms are sometimes used, ‘a primary consideration’ is not the same as ‘the primary consideration’, still less as ‘the paramount consideration’” (para 25). Where the decision directly affects the child’s upbringing, such as the decision to separate a child from her parents, then the child’s best interests are the paramount, or determinative, consideration.”

Further, at para 12:

“12. Although nationality was not a “trump card” it was of particular importance in assessing the best interests of any child (para 30).”

It is correct that the Judge, as the appellant now submits, “did not really put nationality into the balance”. However, caution must be exercised about this submission. First, as the court pointed out during the hearing, the context is vital: Lady Hale was quoting from ZH , an “expulsion case” ( HH , para 9). The question before the Supreme Court in ZH was whether a mother with “an appalling immigration history” (ibid.) should be returned to Tanzania. The children’s father could not care for them due to his health and other matters. Therefore, the question before the court was whether to remove the children’s primary carer, which would inevitably entail the children having to leave the United Kingdom where they were born and were citizens. In such cases, where the children would be obliged to relocate, the importance of their citizenship assumes a different weight. As Lady Hale said at para 32 of ZH :

“32. Nor should the intrinsic importance of citizenship be played down. As citizens these children have rights which they will not be able to exercise if they move to another country. They will lose the advantages of growing up and being educated in their own country, their own culture and their own language. They will have lost all this when they come back as adults.”

Lord Hope echoed these sentiments about nationality at para 41, which he described as a “very significant and weighty factor”. However, in the instant case, no one has suggested that the children should relocate to Poland if the appellant is extradited. Therefore, to my mind, the Judge was correct not to have relied on this factor. Nevertheless, the wider best interests of the children remain a primary consideration. As Lord Kerr put it in ZH at para 46:

“46. It is a universal theme of the various international and domestic instruments to which Lady Hale has referred that, in reaching decisions that will affect a child, a primacy of importance must be accorded to his or her best interests. This is not, it is agreed, a factor of limitless importance in the sense that it will prevail over all other considerations. It is a factor, however, that must rank higher than any other. It is not merely one consideration that weighs in the balance alongside other competing factors. Where the best interests of the child clearly favour a certain course, that course should be followed unless countervailing reasons of considerable force displace them.”

Duty to locate

It is submitted that the Judge erred in stating (para 73) that “Whilst I accept that he lived in the Isle of Man openly, it was not incumbent on the authorities to try and hunt him down.” Against this, the respondent argues that the phrasing of the sentence is ambiguous and the Judge may have been referring to the Polish authorities. If so, they had no obligation (or indeed jurisdiction) to “hunt down” the appellant on the Isle of Man. However, I am not persuaded by the respondent’s submission on this. The context of para 73 is that the appellant had fled to the United Kingdom as a fugitive and had absconded from extradition proceedings in the United Kingdom. The Judge was plainly referring to the British authorities. There are two points.

First, in RT v Poland [2107] EWHC 1978 (Admin) , the Divisional Court (Lord Burnett CJ and Ouseley J) said at para 62:

“62. It is a frequent submission that someone has been living in the United Kingdom openly, often having had contact with various official bodies here. But neither the foreign judicial authority nor the NCA can be expected to explore the byways and alleyways of British officialdom to discover whether someone is in this country. In this case, it is true that the local police took a long time to arrest the appellant, although as we have noted the evidence suggests they had tried earlier and the appellant was taking steps to avoid them.”

The instant case is one where great exploration of “officialdom” was unnecessary. It is clear that the appellant came into contact with the British authorities on many occasions after having fled Polish justice. I have found that this does not amount to an abuse of process. I agree with the Judge that fugitives should not be “rewarded” as she put it (para 73) for their fugitivity. However, I do consider that the failure to arrest should be taken into account in the overall balancing exercise. Nevertheless, I do not regard the Judge’s approach as a fundamental error of law that vitiates the extradition order. This is because, secondly, what it is important in the assessment of proportionality decisions is the correctness of the overall decision or whether it is “wrong” (Celinski, para 24). This stems from the nature of proportionality decisions. They are not exercises in discretion. In that context, it is unhelpful to pore over each line of the lower court’s judgment as if it were a statute or a contract. It is not. I have in mind the helpful observations of Singh LJ in a different context, that decisions need to be read in a “commonsense and fair way and read as a whole” ( R (O) v Peterborough City Council [2016] EWHC 2717, para 52. The essential question remains the “single question” posed by Lord Thomas CJ in Celinski at para 24:

“The single question therefore for the appellate court is whether or not the district judge made the wrong decision. It is only if the court concludes that the decision was wrong, applying what Lord Neuberger said, as set out above, that the appeal can be allowed. Findings of fact, especially if evidence has been heard, must ordinarily be respected. In answering the question whether the district judge, in the light of those findings of fact, was wrong to decide that extradition was or was not proportionate, the focus must be on the outcome, that is on the decision itself. Although the district judge’s reasons for the proportionality decision must be considered with care, errors and omissions do not of themselves necessarily show that the decision on proportionality itself was wrong.”

I cannot accept the appellant’s criticism of the Judge that at para 63d of her judgment in outlining the policy considerations in favour of extradition she omitted to deal with the question of safe haven. The appellant’s argument is that since the authorities knew his address in the Isle of Man, “he was not using the United Kingdom as a safe haven”. This misunderstands the policy imperative: it is to ensure that would-be fugitives do not regard the United Kingdom as an attractive place of flight because those who would evade justice in another country will not be returned by this nation. It remains an important policy consideration.

Overall balance

The appellant submitted that “the most significant factor”, and the “key” to the appeal, was the lack of seriousness of the extradition offence – it was an £85 fraud. The Judge certainly said (para 72) that the offence was “old” and “not in the most serious category”. Three things must be said about this.

First, the offence itself. As Box E of the TACA arrest warrant states, there were two offences. The appellant forged a false employment certificate, wrongly purporting that he worked for CASTROL in Chrzanow, Poland. Then he “swindled” a Polish telecommunications company into concluding a telephone services contract with it.

Second, it is said that the value is only minimal (415.75 zlotys). But as Celinski states in terms (para 13(ii)), “currency conversions may tell little of the real monetary value of items stolen or of sums defrauded.” There are, therefore, two important caveats. First, that this fraud took place in Poland where the value of money in the decade after the end of the communist era cannot be assumed to be same as in the United Kingdom. Second, the date of the offence was June 2000, at a point when mobile phones were becoming more widely used. Further, this was not an opportunistic crime of dishonesty, but involved the appellant with a degree of premeditation forging a false certificate of employment to effect his defrauding of the telecommunications company.

Third, such considerations feed into a vital feature of the approach to the Polish sentence: that it is a sentence imposed by a competent Polish court. As Celinski says (ibid.):

“Each Member State is entitled to set its own sentencing regime and levels of sentence. Provided it is in accordance with the Convention, it is not for a UK judge to second guess that policy. The prevalence and significance of certain types of offending are matters for the requesting state and judiciary to decide”

Family life

While the appellant on appeal placed greatest emphasis on the lack of seriousness of the offence, the Judge (para 74) placed “the greatest weight” on family life, to which I turn. The Judge’s assessment of family life was detailed and meticulous (see paras 68-76). The main features are:

Extradition will result in hardship to the family, but it is capable of mitigation.

This is not a sole carer case; the children still have the love and care of their mother.

Whilst things are difficult, as Ms Wrzosek said in her evidence, she is coping.

There is no compelling evidence that Ms Wrzosek is unable to meet the family expenses.

There are other avenues of support to be explored, for example payment holidays on the mortgage, making further cuts to household expenditure, and seeking the assistance of family.

The children are under the care of their GP, and their conditions are not irreversible.”

The Judge continued:

“75. In terms of finances, whilst I accept that Ms Wrzosek would have to make substantial alterations to her life, and I accept that her children may not have the financially secure future she and the Requested Person envisaged, the reality is that she earns a very reasonable salary, and she will not be destitute. Further, there are avenues which she has yet to explore which could reduce the burden on her until such time as the Requested Person is able to contribute again financially. The financial hardship she would have to endure is no more than the hardship to be expected as a result of extradition.

Of far greater concern is the impact on the children, and I have carefully considered whether this could be a ‘very strong counter-balancing factor’. Even absent expert evidence, I have no hesitation in accepting that in a loving and supportive environment, such as the one that clearly exists in their family, it is not in the best interests of the children for the Requested Person to be extradited. I accept that both children are experiencing an adverse impact on their mental health, which is also manifesting itself in physical ways. I do not diminish how difficult this must be for the Requested Person and Ms Wrzosek. However, I note that the children are receiving medical care and that the physical manifestations of their upset are capable of resolving themselves and being treated (for example the bedwetting and refusal to eat). In terms of their mental health, of course this is harder, and the impact may be felt for some time. However, it appears that the Requested Person and Ms Wrzosek have not wanted to reach out to anyone for help, rather than being entirely alone with no one to assist. I was not persuaded that simply because the Requested Person’s son is only 20, he could not possibly deliver any support; this infantilised him somewhat. I accept that his financial contribution, if indeed he is able to so contribute, may be somewhat limited, but there is nothing to suggest that he could not assist in the care of his sisters. Similarly, the children’s attachment to their parents appears to be very much a product of their current ages, but they will age, they will start to attend school, they will have friends and they will form attachments beyond their parents. All this will serve to mitigate the current adverse impact. Of course, there are also other forms of support, including through school/nursery, support groups and further medical treatment for poor mental health, and Ms Wrzosek will be able to access these if she chooses to.”

Some initial remarks must be made. First, there is no expert evidence about the impact of the appellant’s absence or possible extradition on the children. The Judge largely ground her conclusion about impact on the evidence received from the appellant and his current wife. Second, there is no updating evidence of any deterioration in the children since the extradition hearing. This factor is of significance since the appellant has been on conditional bail with a condition of residence in Coventry, and thus has been apart from the children, who continue to live on the Isle of Man with their mother. Third, there is no evidence that the appellant’s wife has not been able to cope in the intervening time. This is not surprising: she is an accomplished and competent person. She gained a Master’s degree in civil engineering in Poland and is plainly a resourceful and intelligent professional, continuing to work in engineering. For example, as part of the appellant’s successful bail application in November 2024, a character reference was included in the application bundle about his wife:

“It is with great pleasure and utmost confidence that I write this reference for Katarzyna Wrzosek, a highly skilled Wastewater Project Engineer with whom I have had the privilege to work closely for several years. As the Contract’s Manager at Manx Utilities, I have overseen numerous engineers and project managers in the realm of infrastructure development, but few have demonstrated the level of dedication, expertise, and unparalleled commitment that Katarzyna embodies. I first encountered Katarzyna while she was employed by a consulting engineering firm on the Isle of Man, during which time she quickly made a lasting impression with her outstanding qualifications, technical acumen, and experience. …From our initial collaboration, it was clear that Katarzyna was an exceptional asset.”

Fourth, as the Judge noted, a feature of the case is that the appellant and his wife have not reached out to others for help. As the Judge commented (para 76) as part of the mitigating factors to the impact of the appellant’s extradition:

“there are also other forms of support, including through school/nursery, support groups and further medical treatment for poor mental health, and Ms Wrzosek will be able to access these if she chooses to.”

The Judge recognised (para 77) that the standard of living the family has become accustomed to while the appellant has lived with them and contributed to the family generally will not be maintained. But she was satisfied that the hardship will not exceed that which is habitually occurs on separation of a spouse or parent through enforced removal such as extradition. Having cited Norris in her judgment, the Judge was undoubtedly cognisant of the words of Lord Phillips (para 56) that the court should not be criticised for weighing impact by asking how it “would differ from the normal consequences of extradition.”

Public interest

Comity and mutuality . The courts emphasise that the United Kingdom must honour its international treaty commitments and pay due respect to the independent decisions of other nations as the mutual extradition arrangements are based on trust and confidence;

Deterrence . The courts have repeatedly underlined that the United Kingdom must not become a safe haven for fugitives who would evade justice;

Rule of law . There is a strong public interest in ensuring that offenders who have evaded lawful custodial sentences serve them or if they have evaded trial, they must face it. This, to my mind, is simply an expression of the qualification to article 8 ECHR which recognises what is necessary in a democratic society for the prevention of crime and disorder.

The appellant is both a fugitive from Polish justice and absconded from the extradition proceedings in which the United Kingdom acted as the executing state. I have no doubt that the police here should have acted with greater urgency in arresting him on the 2008 bench warrant. I take notice of what Chamberlain J said in Pabian at para 50:

“But a long delay can properly be weighed in the Article 8 balance in cases where it would have been easy to locate the requested person and the UK authorities have failed to take even the most minimal steps to do so.”

That is the position here, and some weight should be afforded to the police failure in this country because the appellant lay down deeper roots in the hiatus. I also follow Chamberlain J when he says in Pabian that if no explanation for delay is forthcoming from the authorities, “the court may assume there is none” (ibid.). This is a far from satisfactory situation. Nevertheless, I reject the appellant’s submission that if the Judge had applied Pabian , she would have “come to a wholly different outcome”.

The appellant made very deliberately decided not to surrender to custody in the extradition proceedings. The significance is that as a fugitive knowing full well that he had an outstanding prison sentence in Poland and extradition proceedings in the country he had absconded to, he chose to build his family life on this fragile foundation.

Like the Judge, I recognise that the appellant turned his life after meeting his second wife. He deserves credit for that, and she does for her unswerving support. This is in marked contrast to the Polish probation files that detail his first wife’s account. She said that the appellant showed little interest in his family, that is, his first wife and very young child. That said, one must not lose sight of what he has turned his life around from. After becoming a fugitive in this country, he did not lead a “blameless” life (the term is from Lady Hale in HH (para 47)). Not long after arriving in the United Kingdom, he drove a vehicle while unfit through drink or drugs, a repeat of a crime he had committed shortly before leaving Poland. He also committed a further offence under the Road Traffic Act 1985 of driving while disqualified under court order, therefore wilfully breaching the order of the United Kingdom court, having breached the order of the Polish court. He was sentenced to 42 days custody for each concurrently in the Isle of Man. There was a financial penalty for criminal damage and no separate penalty for driving without insurance and failing to provide a specimen for analysis. In 2008, he was sentenced for five offences of criminal damage and received a probation order. In 2010, he was fined for being drunk and disorderly and no action was taken for his breaching a bind over imposed on him in 2009. In February 2015, the court imposed no separate sentence for breaching a bind over, but sentenced him to 10 weeks’ custody for failing to provide a breath specimen. On 13 October 2024, he received a conviction for failure to surrender (under section 6(2), a section 7 offence).

When combined with his breach of the Polish suspended sentence, his fugitivity from Poland, and his absconding from extradition proceedings in the United Kingdom, there has been a very significant disregard of court orders in different countries over a period of a decade. Poland as the requesting state seeks his return to Poland to serve a substantial prison sentence of 18 months. Given that in 2018 the Polish judicial authorities refused to dismiss the enforcement of the custodial sentence, and in 2021 the trial court in Chrzanow opposed the clemency petition, it cannot be credibly maintained that the requesting state does not regard the offending as serious. It clearly does. I reject the appellant’s submission to that effect.

Therefore, the constant and weighty public interest in returning a fugitive to face a substantial lawful sentence is not reduced because of a lack of serious regard by the requesting state. However, the public interest is reduced by the nature of the offending and the age of the offences ( HH , para 8(5)). Lady Hale explained that the public interest inevitably varies with offence: a murder is materially different to shoplifting.

The real impact of delay is on the extent that he has established a private and family life and the impact on it. His family life with his wife and children is, in my judgment, a positive factor and a weighty consideration against extradition. His wife and children are innocent parties in all this in a way that the appellant is not. The proper approach to article 8 bars based on family life has been recently clarified in unmistakable terms by the Supreme Court. It said in Andrysiewicz v Poland [2025] UKSC 23 at paras 42-43:

“42. … It seems that an article 8 “defence” is raised almost as a matter of course in virtually every extradition case.

… Cases in which a submission founded on article 8 ECHR may defeat the public interest in extradition will be rare. … Even in cases where interference with family life is relied upon, it will only be in cases of exceptionally severe impact on family life that an article 8 ECHR “defence” will have any prospect of success.”

Turning back to the “single question” identified in Celinski (para 24) for article 8 appeals, the Judge’s decision on proportionality is not wrong. I have examined all the submissions so energetically and skilfully developed before me by Mr Henley. However, there is no rational basis to indicate that the balancing exercise should have resulted in a different outcome. The Judge (para 63) cited the key three authorities ( Norris , HH and Celinski ) and applied them accurately.

The interference with family life in this case is not exceptionally severe and decisively outweighed by the strong public interest in extradition. There was no factor that in Love terms (para 26) should have been weighed “significantly differently”. Thus, an extradition order in the instant case is not disproportionate nor incompatible with the appellant’s article 8 rights and those of his family, viewed in the round.

The appellant’s submission that due to the age of the offences “the time has come to end it; they’ve had their opportunities” is not to my mind the correct approach. He has been granted permission to appeal on two grounds and the appeal must be determined in accordance with those grounds. The abuse of process ground fails. The article 8 ground fails.

The appeal is dismissed.