Innocent Uche Johnbull v Hungarian Judicial Authority

District Judge Tempia ordered the extradition of the Appellant, a Nigerian national aged 40, to Hungary on 17 November 2023. The conviction Extradition Arrest Warrant of 3 May 2023, on which he was arrested and then bailed on 18 July 2023, requests his extradition to serve the 3 year 6 month sentence imposed on him on 14 September 2021 which became final on 1 June 2022. The offending was a serious and sophisticated fraud with a significant value. It involved participation in money laundering as part of a conspiracy where companies were misled by false electronic messages to make bank transfers. There were 8 relevant occasions and an aggregate sum equivalent to €242,000.

The Appellant has worked hard in his settled job as a carer for vulnerable adults, with his settled accommodation and no UK convictions, in the 6 years since coming to the UK on 10 November 2018. He provides financial support for the two children (aged 6 and 9) who live in Hungary with his wife, and who last visited him here in July 2023. The financial support is especially important given the wife’s medical condition. The Judge recorded the Appellant’s evidence about discrimination in Hungary, but also the absence of evidence to substantiate claims about sentencing disparity or discriminatory ill-treatment in prison.

The Judge found that the strong public interest considerations in favour of extradition decisively outweighed those capable of weighing against it, having unassailably found: (1) that the Appellant left Hungary as a fugitive knowing of the proceedings against him, having appeared at a trial hearing on 18 October 2018, and breaching a known duty to notify the authorities of any change of address (on which points his denials were disbelieved after hearing his oral evidence); and (2) that there was no delay or passage of time capable substantially of reducing the public interest considerations, in the context of a complex fraud with some 32 hearings and evidenced steps after June 2022 to track him down.

The working illustration case of Giedrojc v Poland [2023] EWHC 863 (Admin) – not cited to the Judge but cited to me – has assisted me as a reminder that a strong private life involving a settled career, even after an act of fugitivity, is a relevant feature which can support a viable Article 8 appeal. But that was a case of an activated two-year sentence where the “triviality of the offending” (possession of one cannabis plant and then one cannabis joint) “very much diminished” the public interest in extradition, against which the 10 year private life weighed.

I cannot accept, even arguably, that the Judge ignored and gave no attention to the private life. She weighed it in the balance and referenced it: living and working openly in the UK since 2018 with a settled job and accommodation. In any event, the outcome in the present case is plainly right. There is no realistic prospect that it would be overturned at a substantive hearing of this appeal. I will refuse permission to appeal and, since it is incapable of being decisive, refuse permission to adduce the putative fresh evidence that is before the Court and which I considered to see where it could lead.