Vasile Sorin Bardasu v Romanian Judicial Authority

This is an appeal under section 26 of the Extradition Act 2003 [“the 2003 Act”] from the decision of District Judge Matson dated 4 February 2025 ordering that the Appellant be extradited to Romania.

The Appellant is a Romanian national born on 6 October 1980. He is 45 years old. His extradition to Romania is sought under an arrest warrant issued by the Respondent judicial authority on 9 February 2018 [“the EAW”] and certified by the National Crime Agency on 11 August 2023.

Romania is a category 1 territory for the purposes of the 2003 Act. The EAW is a conviction warrant. It relates to a judgment of the Romanian court which became final on 26 January 2018. The Appellant was sentenced for two offences, as follows –

The EAW records that the sentence imposed by the Romanian court which became final on 26 January 2018 was a term of 9 months’ imprisonment for the drink driving offence together with activation of a suspended sentence of 3 years’ imprisonment previously imposed for the offence of tax evasion. The entire sentence of 3 years and 9 months remains to be served by the Appellant. The EAW records that the Appellant was both present and legally represented at the hearing which resulted in the finalisation of that prison sentence.

The Appellant was arrested on 21 June 2024 and appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on the same day. At that initial hearing, he indicated that he may consent to his extradition subject to the service of a prison assurance. An assurance was served on 29 July 2024. However, at a further hearing in the Magistrates’ Court on 16 August 2024 the Appellant indicated that he did not consent to being extradited. His extradition hearing took place on 16 January 2025. At that hearing he was represented by Mr George Hepburne Scott of Counsel. The Appellant gave oral evidence and was cross examined on behalf of the Respondent.

The Appellant has been remanded in custody since his arrest.

At his extradition hearing before the District Judge, the Appellant resisted his return to Romania on three grounds: firstly, that the EAW failed to provide the information required by section 2 of the 2003 Act; secondly, that his extradition would expose him to a real risk of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment contrary to article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights [“ECHR”]; and thirdly, that his extradition would constitute a disproportionate interference with his right to respect for his private and family life protected under article 8 of the ECHR.

The District Judge found that the requirements of section 2 of the 2003 Act had been satisfied in this case. The District Judge concluded that the Appellant’s concerns upon which he had based his case under article 3 of the ECHR were unfounded on the evidence. The District Judge found that the Appellant’s extradition would be compatible with his rights protected under article 8 of the ECHR. He ordered the Appellant’s extradition pursuant to section 21(3) of the 2003 Act.

The Appellant lodged a notice of appeal advancing two grounds –

On 3 October 2023, Morris J granted permission to appeal on the second ground only.

On 19 December 2025 the Appellant filed an application for permission to rely on fresh evidence.

At the hearing of the appeal, the Appellant was represented by Mr Hepburne Scott and the Respondent by Ms Lucy Waterstone of Counsel. I am very grateful to them both for their helpful submissions.

In evidence before the District Judge, the Appellant said that he had been born and raised in Romania. He graduated in management in 2004 and worked in the construction industry in Romania until 2015. He said that he came to the United Kingdom in March 2015 to seek employment and had worked in this country since then in construction. He said that his life was fully integrated in the UK.

In answer to questions put to him in cross-examination, the Appellant said that he had been present at his trial proceedings in Romania and was sentenced to 3 years and 9 months’ imprisonment in 2018. He said that he had travelled back and forth between the UK and Romania during the period between 2015 and 2018. He said that he had not returned to Romania in the years after the prison sentence was imposed upon him in 2018. Although he said that he had not sought to avoid his prison sentence, he did accept that in coming back to the UK following the final imposition of that prison sentence, he had put himself beyond the reach of the Romanian authorities. However, he said that his reason for leaving Romania had been because he had been divorced and saw no reason either to remain there or to return thereafter.

The Appellant said that he has three children. His two eldest children were aged 12 and 13 years. They lived in Romania with their respective mothers. Neither of them has ever lived in the UK. He last saw them in 2018. The Appellant said that since April 2024 his wife had been living in Moldova with his youngest child. He had not seen either of them since that date. They had remained in contact via WhatsApp.

The District Judge found that the Appellant had left Romania in 2018 in full knowledge of sentence of imprisonment which had been imposed upon him, after that sentence was imposed and that the Appellant had clearly not returned to Romania since that date in order to avoid serving his prison sentence. The District Judge found that the Appellant had deliberately and knowingly placed himself beyond the reach of the legal process in Romania and was accordingly a fugitive from justice.

The District Judge found that the Appellant had been in the UK since 2015, although he had regularly returned to Romania until after the imposition of the prison sentence upon him in early 2018. The District Judge accepted that the Appellant had established a life for himself in the UK and had worked in this country. The Appellant had not committed any further offences either in the UK or elsewhere.

The District Judge found that there had been no significant delay prior to the issue of the EAW itself. The Respondent judicial authority had issued the EAW on 9 February 2018, shortly after the Appellant’s prison sentence became final on 26 January 2018. However, the District Judge found that the period of five and a half years’ delay between the issue of the EAW by the Respondent judicial authority on 9 February 2018 and its certification by the National Crime Agency [“NCA”] on 11 August 2023 had not been explained.

In accordance with the approach approved in Polish Judicial Authority v Celinski [2016] 1 WLR 551 DC at [16], the District Judge set out the balance sheet of particular factors weighing in favour of and against extradition. She then set out her reasons explaining why, in the present case, she concluded that she should order the Appellant’s extradition to Romania.

The particular factors weighing in favour of extradition were as follows –

The particular factors identified by the District Judge as weighing against extradition were as follows –

In drawing the balance between these various factors weighing in favour and against extradition of the Appellant, the District Judge directed herself in accordance with the established principles stated in Norris v United States of America [2010] 2 AC 487 and H(H) v Italy [2013] 1 AC 338. In [50] of her judgment, the District Judge said –

“The decisions of the Supreme Court in Norris and HH make clear the question raised under Article 8 is whether the interference with private and family life of the person whose extradition is sought is outweighed by the public interest in extradition. I need not repeat the guidance in the cases quoted. I have considered the above factors and concluded that the factors supporting extradition outweigh the factors mitigating against. This is primarily based on the public interest, the fugitive status of the [Appellant], the seriousness of the offending and the length of sentence to be served”.

In [51] to [55] of her judgment, the District Judge stated her reasons for that conclusion.

In [51] and [52], the District Judge considered the impact of the Appellant’s extradition on the Appellant’s private and family life. She acknowledged that extradition would cause distress both to the Appellant and his family, in view of the changes to his life since he left Romania in 2015. She had taken account of the Appellant’s evidence about his life in the UK. However, that evidence was limited. He had not said that he had a job in this country. He had not referred to having friends in the UK. He had given no real account of the extent of his life in this country. Although he had said in his proof of evidence that his family were settled in the UK, in his oral evidence he had told the court that his wife and youngest child had been living in Moldova since Easter 2024 and that he had not seen them since that date. His two older children live in Romania. He had not seen them since 2018. Although his evidence was that he supported his family, he had given no evidence as to how he did so. The court had received no evidence from the Appellant’s wife. In the light of her analysis of the evidence, the District Judge concluded that any impact of extradition on the Appellant and his family will be limited.

In [53] of her judgment, the District Judge considered delay. As the Appellant’s case in support of his appeal is primarily founded on the contention that the District Judge failed properly to consider and to evaluate the significance of delay in his case, I shall set out [53] in full –

“In relation to the delay, I accept this is a significant factor I take into account in the balancing exercise. I note that the [Judicial Authority] issued the EAW in February 2018, very soon after the final sentence was handed down. There has not been a delay on the part of the [Judicial Authority]. There has been a significant delay in the NCA certifying this warrant without any proper explanation. I note the offences are of some age, the tax evasion being 2005 and the excess alcohol 2015. I note that the sentence in relation to the tax evasion was initially suspended and the [Appellant] was due to pay compensation. He did not comply with the terms of his suspended sentence and that accounts for some of the delay in relation to the 3 year sentence for tax evasion. In any event, I have found the [Appellant] to be a fugitive and I do not consider delay in this case militates the public interest in any meaningful way. The [Appellant] has continued to build his private and family life in full knowledge that he had the sentence hanging over him”.

In [54] to [57] of her judgment, the District Judge stated her conclusion that the strong public interest in the UK complying with its international treaty obligations, the fact that the Appellant was a fugitive and the need for the UK not to be seen as offering a safe haven for those seeking to evade justice “far outweighs” the Appellant’s article 8 rights in this case. Extradition of the Appellant would be a proportionate interference with his article 8 rights. His offending was serious and the remaining prison sentence to be served in Romania was a significant one. In so concluding, the District Judge said that she had taken into account that the Appellant had not committed any further offences since arriving in the UK. He had put his offending history behind him. She found, however, that the age of the Appellant’s offending in Romania was not a factor of such weight as to render his extradition to serve his sentence for those offences incompatible with his rights protected under article 8 of the ECHR.

This court’s powers on an appeal against an extradition order are set out in section 27 of the 2003 Act. This court may allow the appeal only on being satisfied of one or other of the conditions stated in subsections (3) and (4) of section 27 –

In Pabian v Circuit Court in Warsaw, Poland [2024] EWHC 2431 (Admin), Chamberlain J identified the principles which emerge from the case law in relation to the relevance of delay in extradition proceedings to the balancing exercise to be undertaken under article 8 of the ECHR. At [51] he said this –

“Delay may be relevant to the Article 8 balance in one or both of two ways. As Lady Hale said in HH, inadequately explained delay on the part of the issuing state may cast light on the seriousness attached by that state to the offending in respect of which extradition is sought. Inadequately explained delay on the part of the executing state is unlikely to bear on that issue, but may still be relevant when assessing the weight to be given to any interference with private and/or family life to which extradition gives rise. This is likely to be of particular importance in cases where extradition would disrupt family relationships which have started or significantly developed during the period of delay, but it may also be relevant where the requested person has built up a private life in this country during that period. The weight to be given to the interference is attenuated, but not extinguished, by the fact that the requested person came to this country as a fugitive from justice”.

In Celinski at [24], the court gave the following guidance as to the approach which this court should follow in determining appeals against extradition orders which raise issues of proportionality under article 8 of the ECHR –

“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 … 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”.

Mr Hepburne Scott drew attention to the guidance given by the court in Love v United States of America [2018] 1 WLR 2889 DC at [26] –

“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 approach to be followed by this court when faced with an application to admit fresh evidence in support of an appeal against an extradition order is stated in the familiar case of Szombathely City Court v Fenyvesi [2009] 4 All ER 324 at [32]. In Polom v Poland [2024] EWHC 2708 (Admin) at [19], Collins Rice J provided a helpful summary of the Fenyvesi test –

“The Fenyvesi test (set out at [32] of the Divisional Court's judgment) for the admission of fresh evidence into an extradition appeal is in two parts. First, admissibility is restricted to evidence which either did not exist at the time of the extradition hearing or was not at the disposal of the party wishing to adduce it and which they could not with reasonable diligence have obtained. And second, the court must be satisfied that if the evidence had been adduced, the result would have been different and resulted in the appellant's discharge. It is a 'strict test', consonant with the Parliamentary intention underlying the 2003 Extradition Act, that extradition cases should be dealt with speedily and not generally held up by attempts to introduce equivocal subsequent evidence”.

Mr Hepburne Scott focused his written and oral submissions on the District Judge’s consideration of the impact of delay in drawing the Article 8 balance in this case. Counsel identified two distinct periods of delay –

Mr Hepburne Scott drew attention to the District Judge’s finding in [34] of her judgment, that the second of those periods of delay between February 2018 and August 2023 had been unexplained. He submitted that on evidence before the District Judge, the impact of that lengthy period of unexplained delay on the Appellant’s private and family life in the UK had been significant. The Appellant’s evidence was that since his arrival in the UK in March 2015, he had lived and worked in this country, gaining settled status for himself and his family and integrating himself into British society. The Appellant’s and his family’s integration and settlement in the UK will have been strengthened during the lengthy period of delay between February 2018, when he returned from Romania following his final visit to that country; and August 2023, when he became aware that the Respondent had issued the EAW seeking his extradition back to Romania.

Counsel acknowledged the District Judge’s finding that the Appellant had left Romania in early 2018 as a fugitive from justice. Nevertheless, it was submitted, the authorities show that in the context of drawing the article 8 balance, it would be an error of law to regard the fact that the requested person was a fugitive from justice as extinguishing any weight that might be given to a period of unexplained delay in prosecuting proceedings for his extradition. In any such case, the proper approach is for the court to consider the degree to which the weight given to the resulting interference with the requested person’s private and family life is to be attenuated by his being a fugitive from justice.

Mr Hepburne Scott submitted that in [53] of her judgment the District Judge had fallen in error. Having found that the Appellant has been the victim of significant, unexplained delay in the extradition proceedings against him following the issue of the EAW in February 2018, the District Judge had failed to give any or any sufficient weight to that factor in drawing the article 8 balance.

In support of his submissions in relation to the overall delay since the Appellant’s commission of the extradition offences in 2005 and 2015 respectively, Mr Hepburne Scott relied upon [8] in the judgment of Lady Hale in H(H), where she said –

“(6)

The delay since the crimes were committed may both diminish the weight to be attached to the public interest and increase the impact on private and family life”.

Counsel submitted that the overall period of such delay in the present case, extending to over 20 years in respect of the more serious offending and 10 years in respect of the second offence, was very considerable indeed. When taken together with the District Judge’s finding that for the period of five and a half years between early 2018 and August 2023 that delay lacked any explanation, the impact of delay on the Appellant’s private and family life should have weighed significantly in the balance against extradition. The District Judge had been wrong to conclude as she did in [53] of her judgment, that it did not affect the overall Article 8 balance in any meaningful way.

Mr Hepburne Scott submitted that the District Judge’s erroneous approach to and consideration of the impact of delay had caused her wrongly to conclude that the interference with the Appellant’s private and family life resulting from his extradition would not be disproportionate. It was submitted that upon a correct and proper evaluation of the impact of delay in this case, the public interest in the Appellant’s extradition to Romania to serve his prison sentence was outweighed by that impact, taken together with the other factors identified by the District Judge (see paragraph 21 above). The conclusion of the District Judge that the Appellant’s extradition would be compatible with his rights protected under article 8 of the ECHR must be found to have been wrong and the Appellant should be discharged.

The issue in this appeal is whether the District Judge was wrong to conclude that the Appellant's extradition was proportionate to and compatible with his and his family's rights protected under article 8 of the ECHR. The District Judge directed herself in accordance with the principles established in Norris, H(H) and Celinski. In those cases, the courts have emphasised the public interest in those convicted of crimes being required to serve their sentences and that the United Kingdom should not be seen as a safe haven for fugitive offenders.

However, in a case where extradition proceedings on a conviction warrant are only brought many years after the commission of the offence or offences for which the requested person has been convicted, it may be necessary to consider whether that period of delay serves to diminish the weight to be attached to that public interest and correspondingly to increase the impact on the requested person’s private and family life: H(H) at [8(6)]. Whether that is the effect of delay and if so, the degree to which it may have the effects stated by Lady Hale in H(H), is to be judged carefully by reference to the particular circumstances of the given case. Moreover, although it may well be necessary to take account of the overall period of the delay that has occurred since commission of the relevant offence or offences, there may be a specific period or periods of unexplained delay which merit particular consideration for the impact which they have had on the private and family life of the requested person.

In the present case, the EAW is based upon the Appellant’s conviction for two offences. The first offence of tax evasion was committed in late 2005. The EAW records that for that offence, on 22 November 2011 the Romanian court imposed a suspended sentence of 3 years’ imprisonment and ordered the Appellant and his co-defendants to pay compensation to the Romanian state. The second offence of driving with excess alcohol was committed on 14 January 2015. On 23 March 2017 the Romanian court imposed a sentence of 9 months’ imprisonment for that offence.

On 21 January 2018 the Romanian court activated the Appellant’s suspended sentence imposed for the first offence and pronounced a final sentence of 3 years and 9 months’ imprisonment to be served immediately.

The Appellant moved to the UK in March 2015. He did so to find work in the construction industry. He returned to Romania from time to time between 2015 and 2018. The EAW states that the Appellant was both present and legally represented at the hearing at which his final sentence was pronounced by the Romanian court. He left Romania in early 2018 and has not returned since. The District Judge found it proven that he left Romania for the final time as a fugitive from justice, after and in full knowledge of the imposition of the final sentence of imprisonment, and not returning since then in order to avoid serving his sentence.

On 9 February 2018, some two weeks after the hearing on which the Appellant’s final sentence was pronounced by the Romanian court, the Respondent judicial authority issued the EAW. The NCA did not certify the EAW until 11 August 2023, some five and a half years later. The District Judge found that period of delay between the issue of the EAW and its certification to lack any explanation.

The criminal proceedings against the Appellant in Romania for the offence of tax evasion were concluded in November 2011, some six years after the offence was committed. Further information provided by the Respondent on 4 October 2024 indicates that the Appellant was prosecuted with three co-defendants. There is no evidence to indicate that those proceedings were excessively prolonged. Throughout that period of six years, the Appellant was living in Romania.

On 14 January 2015 the Appellant committed the offence of driving with excess alcohol. That offence took place in Bacau, Romania. On 23 March 2017, the Appellant was sentenced to 9 months’ imprisonment for that offence. In March 2015 the Appellant had left Romania to live in the UK. It is unclear whether he was in Romania and, if so, present on 23 March 2017 when that sentence was imposed by the Romanian court. In any event, there is nothing to suggest that the criminal proceedings against him for that offence which resulted in the imposition of a prison sentence on 23 March 2017 were in any way unnecessarily prolonged.

The final stage in the overall history of criminal proceedings against the Appellant in the Romanian court concluded with the pronouncement of the final sentence of 3 years and 9 months’ imprisonment on 26 January 2018. It is clear from the EAW that in committing the offence of driving with excess alcohol on 14 January 2015, the Appellant breached the terms of his suspended sentence imposed by the Romanian court on 22 November 2011. There is nothing to suggest that the period of some 10 months which elapsed prior to activation of his suspended sentence for the first offence and the amalgamation of his prison sentence to be served for both offences was unnecessarily prolonged.

There was no delay in the issue of the EAW following the pronouncement by the Romanian court of the Appellant’s final sentence on 26 January 2018.

The Appellant’s submission is that the period of 13 years between his commission of the offence of tax evasion in 2005 and the pronouncement of the final sentence of imprisonment imposed upon him on 26 January 2018 amounted to unexplained delay which significantly diminishes the public interest in his extradition pursuant to the EAW. In the light of my analysis of the history of the criminal proceedings brought against the Appellant in the Romanian court from late 2005 until 26 January 2018, I am unable to accept that submission. That history reveals no unexplained delay on the part of the Respondent in pursuing criminal proceedings against the Appellant. Moreover, for much of that period of 13 years the Appellant was living in Romania. He did not move to the UK until March 2015. It is also significant that the Appellant had returned to Romania and was present at the hearing before the Romanian court on 26 January 2018. He was legally represented at that hearing. There is nothing in the evidence and information before the District Judge to suggest that, had the Appellant wished to do so, he would have been unable to raise any concerns about delays in the criminal proceedings against him for one or other, or both of the offences for which he was finally sentenced at that hearing.

For these reasons, I am satisfied that the District Judge cannot justifiably be criticised for declining to find that there had been any significant or unexplained delay on the part of the Respondent as the issuing state. In my judgment, the District Judge’s conclusion in [53] of her judgment that there had been no significant delay on the part of the Respondent in the period prior to the issue of the EAW was plainly justified.

I turn to the unexplained period of five and a half years’ delay between the issue of the EAW in early February 2018 and its certification by the NCA on 11 August 2023. The District Judge found that period of unexplained delay to be a significant factor to be taken in account in drawing the article 8 balance in this case. She was clearly correct to make that finding. However, the degree of weight to be given to that factor turned primarily on the impact which that considerable period of delay had been shown to have had on the Appellant’s private and family life. I respectfully agree with the approach explained by Chamberlain J at [51] in Pabian: the principal focus of the inquiry in a case of unexplained delay on the part of the executing state is likely to be on any resulting disruption to family life, including relationships which have developed during the period of delay; and on the degree to which the requested person may have built up or strengthened his or her private life in the UK during the same period.

In the present case, the District Judge considered those questions in [51] to [53] of her judgment. She said that there was nothing in the evidence which the Appellant had given which really set out the extent of his life in the UK. She acknowledged that the Appellant had been working in the construction industry. He had a National Insurance number and a Unique Tax Reference. She accepted as a factor militating against his extradition that the Appellant had developed a settled life in the UK. However, the District Judge pointed out that the Appellant had not said that he had a job in the UK. He had said nothing about his social life. I have read the Appellant’s witness statement which he signed on 6 September 2024. The District Judge’s assessment of the very limited degree of information which he gave about his private life in the UK is completely consistent with the very brief account which he gave in that statement.

Mr Hepburne Scott submitted that it could reasonably be inferred that over the years since he arrived in the UK in March 2015, the Appellant had built up casual friendships and social ties. His possession of a National Insurance number and a Unique Tax Reference clearly indicated that he had been working in this country.

I accept that submission, as far as it goes. Nevertheless, it does not undermine the District Judge’s conclusion that on the basis of the paucity of information which the Appellant has provided about his private life in the UK, the impact of extradition on that life would be limited. Moreover, there was no substantial evidence or information before the District Judge as to any particular impact on the Appellant’s private life in the UK resulting from the delay between issue of the EAW in February 2018 and its certification in August 2023.

Insofar as the impact on the Appellant’s family was concerned, the District Judge based her findings primarily on the evidence given by the Appellant in answer to questions put to him at the extradition hearing. It was not suggested that she had been unjustified in doing so. On the basis of that evidence, the District Judge found that the Appellant’s wife and youngest child had been living in Moldova since Easter 2024. The Appellant had not seen them since that date. The Appellant’s two older children live in Romania. He has not seen them since 2018. The District Judge said that she had received no evidence from the Appellant as to how, in these circumstances, he supports his family. Nor had she received evidence from the Appellant’s wife. Again, in the light of these findings the District Judge cannot fairly be criticised for concluding that any impact of extradition on the Appellant’s family life would be limited in extent. As was the case with his private life, there was no substantial evidence or information before the District Judge as to any particular impact on the Appellant’s family life in the UK or elsewhere resulting from the delay between issue of the EAW in February 2018 and its certification in August 2023.

It is against the context of these findings by the District Judge that the propriety and correctness of her conclusions on the significance of delay in [53] of her judgment fall to be considered. In that paragraph, she clearly accepted that there had been a significant delay in the NCA certifying the EAW. She found that delay to lack any proper explanation. She acknowledged that delay was a significant factor in this case. She had already identified delay as a factor which told against the Appellant’s extradition in the article 8 balance. The question for her to consider was the degree of weight that she should give to that factor in drawing the article 8 balance.

As Chamberlain J explained at [51] in Pabian, where significant and unexplained delay in pursuing extradition proceedings means that the requested person will suffer greater disruption to private or family life than would otherwise have been the case, the fact that the requested person came to this country as a fugitive from justice may attenuate the weight to be given to that interference. If the impact of significant, unexplained delay on a requested person’s family life is found to be very great, that impact may be judged to carry substantial weight even if attenuated by the fact that he or she is a fugitive from justice.

That, however, is very clearly not the present case. Here, the District Judge concluded that the impact of extradition on the Appellant’s private and family life would be limited. That conclusion was justified in the light of the evidence before her. There was a lack of evidence that the unexplained delay in certifying the EAW, although lengthy, had increased the scale of that impact. The Appellant was a fugitive from justice. It is entirely unsurprising that, in those circumstances, the District Judge should conclude that delay did not weigh meaningfully in the balance against the public interest in returning a fugitive offender to serve a prison sentence of 3 years and 9 months in the requesting state. That was the District Judge’s conclusion in [53] of her judgment. I do not read her reasoning in that paragraph as indicating that the District Judge regarded the delay in certifying the EAW as irrelevant to the article 8 balancing exercise, simply because the Appellant was a fugitive. On the contrary, her reasoning in [53] is evaluative: she regarded the fact that the Appellant was a fugitive as diminishing what limited weight might otherwise be given to delay in this case. That was a legally sound approach. In the light of her findings on the evidence, she was justified in reaching the view that the delay in this case did not “mitigate the public interest in any meaningful way”.

Even had I been persuaded that in [53] of her judgment, the District Judge gave insufficient weight to the impact on the Appellant’s private and family life of the unexplained delay in certifying the EAW, I would not have found her to have been wrong in her overall conclusion that extradition of the Appellant would not amount to a disproportionate interference with his rights protected under article 8 of the ECHR. The offences of which the Appellant was convicted in Romania were serious. The sentence which he has yet to serve is a substantial term of imprisonment. He fled the Romanian jurisdiction in early 2018 in the knowledge that he had that sentence to serve and seeking to avoid it. There is a strong public interest weighing in favour of his extradition to serve his sentence.

In Andrysiewicz v Circuit Court in Lodz, Poland [2025] 1 WLR 1733 at [33] to [43] the Supreme Court reviewed the role of article 8 of the ECHR in extradition cases in the light of the principles stated in Norris, HH and Celinski. At [47] the Supreme Court said –

“We have set out above relevant passages in Norris, H(H) and Celinski at some length because it is clear that there is a need to reiterate the essential points they make. Cases in which a submission founded on article 8 ECHR may defeat the public interest in extradition will be rare. It is most unlikely that extradition will be held to be disproportionate on the ground of interference with private life. 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”.

In the light of the District Judge’s findings, this is not a case in which the impact on the Appellant’s private and family life protected under article 8 of the ECHR begins to approach that degree of severity.

I turn finally to the Appellant’s application to admit fresh evidence. That evidence consists of the Appellant’s proof of evidence dated 16 December 2025 and the written statement made by the Appellant’s wife, Cristina Bardasu, on 18 December 2025.

I have read both documents with care. Applying the established Fenyvesi principles, I am satisfied that the admission of neither of them can be justified. The Appellant’s proof of evidence comprises twelve short paragraphs of information about his private and family life in the UK and in Romania. All of that information was available to him prior to the extradition hearing on 16 January 2025. I can see no good reason why it was not produced in advance of that hearing. Moreover, insofar as the Appellant provides some limited further information about his personal and family circumstances, that information is consistent with the conclusions reached by the District Judge in relation to the Appellant’s private and family life and the limited impact which was likely to result from his extradition to Romania.

Essentially the same analysis applies to the limited further information now provided by the Appellant’s wife. Mr Hepburne Scott drew attention to her evidence that the Appellant’s youngest child, now aged nearly 3 years old, may possibly be autistic. Even assuming in the Appellant’s favour that a possible diagnosis of autism may not have been identified prior to January 2025, that is not a factor that is capable of affecting the District Judge’s overall conclusion that extradition would be compatible with the Appellant’s rights protected under article 8 of the ECHR. It now appears that the Appellant’s wife and youngest child are in fact living in Romania. There is no evidence that the continuing assessment of their child’s medical and developmental needs in Romania will be adversely affected by the Appellant’s return to that country to serve his prison sentence.

This appeal is dismissed.