Katarzyna Monika Lasek v The Circuit Court of Tarnobrzeg (Poland)

The appellant is now 39 years old. She is the subject of an arrest warrant issued on 17 September 2018 by the Circuit Court of Tarnobrzeg, Poland, and certified by the National Crime Agency on 8 March 2023.

Poland seeks the appellant’s surrender to serve a sentence imposed by a judgment of 17 February 2015 for two fraud offences committed in May and August 2008, when she was 21. Both involved obtaining loans from banks using forged documents. The total value obtained through these frauds was PLN 3,266 (the equivalent of about £760). The aggregate sentence for these offences was 1 year and 6 months’ imprisonment. The appellant began to serve this sentence on 28 February 2015, but was conditionally released shortly afterwards. She breached the conditions and travelled to the United Kingdom. On 22 January 2016, she was required to serve the remainder of the term, 1 year and 15 days.

The appellant was arrested under the warrant on 8 March 2023 and brought to Westminster Magistrates’ Court on the same day, where she was admitted to conditional bail. The extradition hearing was adjourned while she underwent medical investigations for suspected cancer. By the time of the hearing before District Judge Pilling, she was well. The District Judge handed down her decision on 2 July 2024, ordering the appellant’s extradition.

There is one ground of appeal, that extradition would be incompatible with the rights of the appellant and her son (who was one year old at the time of the extradition hearing) under Article 8 ECHR and thus contrary to s. 21 of the 2003 Act. Permission was granted by Jay J on 18 November 2024, but the appeal was later stayed pending the judgment of the Supreme Court in Andrysiewicz v Poland [2025] UKSC 23, [2025] 1 WLR 2733.

The District Judge recorded the evidence given by the appellant and her partner, Mr Krakowiak. She found their evidence to be contradictory and incredible. At [27] of her judgment, the District Judge found as follows:

“She understood the conditions attached to her early release from custody and knew the consequences of non-compliance would be her return to prison. I am satisfied so that I am sure that the RP left Poland to avoid being returned to prison and has deliberately and knowingly placed herself beyond the reach of the legal process in Poland. I find therefore that she is a fugitive.”

The District Judge directed reminded herself of the test to be applied in Article 8 cases, as enunciated by the Supreme Court in Norris v Government of the USA (No. 2) [2010] UKSC 9, [2010] 2 AC 487 and HH v Italy [2012] UKSC 25, [2013] 1 AC 338. She went on to perform the balancing exercise required by the Divisional Court in Celinski v Poland [2015] EWHC 1274 (Admin), [2016] 1 WLR 551.

The District Judge identified four factors in favour of extradition: (i) the constant and weighty public interest in extradition; (ii) the very high public interest in ensuring that the UK honours its treaty obligations to other countries; (iii) the decision of the judicial authority to make an extradition request should be accorded a proper degree of mutual confidence and respect; (iv) the requested person is a fugitive; it is important that the UK is not seen as a ‘safe haven’ for those seeking to avoid being prosecuted or serving their lawfully imposed punishment.

Against extradition were these factors: (i) the RP has a settled private life in the UK; (ii) there would be detrimental impact to the protected rights of Mr Krakowiak and Saeid; (iii) the offences were committed in 2008, over 15 years ago and when the requested person was much younger; (iv) the offences are “not the most serious”; (v) the requested person has served “a lengthy period of imprisonment in Poland”. (This latter point may be questioned, as it appears that the appellant in fact only served a matter of weeks in custody before being conditionally released. Any error, however, was in the appellant’s favour.)

The District Judge accepted that the appellant was the main caregiver to her son who (at the time of her judgment) was just over one year old. He would be significantly impacted by any separation from his mother. If the appellant were extradited, Mr Krakowiak would return to Poland with the appellant’s son, to live with the appellant’s mother there. The District Judge said this:

“43… The stable family life would continue for [the appellant’s son], albeit with his maternal grandmother assisting his father in his day to day care. This is, unfortunately, a common consequence to a child of criminal behaviour by a parent. The RP had been a fugitive from Poland for over seven years before she gave birth to [her son] and was well aware that she could be required to serve this sentence.

44.

There is no suggestion the family would suffer financial hardship were the RP to be extradited, as she has never worked or contributed financially to the household.

45.

It was suggested that Mr Krakowiak’s ill health means that he would be unable to provide practical care for [the appellant’s son] in the absence of the RP. I consider that any real issues over his ill health, about which I am in some doubt, then the maternal grandmother or other family members are clearly willing and able to provide assistance.

46.

Having conducted the balancing exercise, these factors do not, in my assessment, outweigh the weighty public interest factors identified in favour of extradition.

47.

I have concluded that there is nothing out of the ordinary or particularly grave or serious that would result from the extradition of the RP on this AW.

48.

In all the circumstances, the extradition of the RP will not disproportionately interfere with any person’s right to respect for private and family life and is compatible with the Convention.”

Benjamin Seifert for the appellant applied for an adjournment of the substantive appeal hearing on the basis of evidence showing that Mr Krakowiak was being investigated for possible lung cancer and that his health had deteriorated to the point where he may be unable to care for the appellant’s son. Mr Seifert submitted that, in these circumstances, I should wait until the outcome of the medical investigations were known. I indicated that, since the parties had attended court, I would hear the arguments on the substantive appeal. I would then grant the adjournment if Mr Krakowiak’s prognosis appeared to be determinative of the appeal. Having had the opportunity to consider the oral and written submissions in some detail, I do not consider that Mr Karkowiak’s prognosis is even potentially determinative of the appeal. The application for an adjournment is therefore refused.

Mr Seifert for the appellant submitted that the District Judge’s decision could be seen to be wrong on the basis of four factors taken together.

First, it was unclear how Mr Krakowiak (who was in poor health even at the time of the hearing before the District Judge) would be able to return to Poland and whether he would be able to assist with bringing up the appellant’s son while she was in custody. In those circumstances, there was (or at least is now) an obvious need to make a request for a report from social services under s. 7 of the Children Act 1989: see A&B v Hungary [2013] EWHC 3132 (Admin), [27] and Bakai v Slovakia [2024] EWHC 1768 (Admin), [1]. The judge erred in not ordering one.

Secondly, although the District Judge said that the offences were “not the most serious” they were in truth very minor and fall within the table in para 12.2.4 of the Criminal Practice Direction.

Thirdly, although the District Judge found the appellant to be a fugitive, she should nonetheless have considered the delay since the index offending. The appellant left Poland in 2015, some 7 years after index offending.

Fourthly, the District Judge was wrong to say that this case was not “out of the ordinary”. These were minor offences which took place 17 years ago. The appellant was the main carer for her (now 3-year old son). The father was 61 and in poor health. Whilst there was evidence that he would go to Poland, there was insufficient evidence as to how. It would be pertinent to know what plans were in place in the event that Mr Krakowski were diagnosed with cancer.

Appeals on Article 8 grounds against decisions ordering extradition face two substantial hurdles. The first is the recent decision of the Supreme Court in Andrysziewicz, which draws together and restates previous authority to the effect that “[e]ven 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”.

The second hurdle is that the “balancing sheet” approach to Article 8 is now very well understood by the judges who conduct extradition hearings. Those judges have a great deal of experience in applying that approach. They will have seen a very broad range of cases and will have a good idea how strong a case is compared to the norm. As the Supreme Court made plain in Andrysziewicz at [33(5)], “[d]eciding whether extradition will be compatible with Convention rights is a fact-specific exercise”. The Administrative Court will not interfere with an individualised fact-specific judgment balancing a requested person’s Article 8 rights against the public interest in extradition unless it can be shown that the judge’s decision was “wrong” in the relevant sense, explained most recently by Dame Siobhan Keegan sitting in the Supreme Court in In re H-W (Children) [2022] UKSC 17, [2022] 1 WLR 3243. As she said at [48]:

“if each appellate court were to undertake such a fresh evaluation, it would expose the parties, and the children, to the risk of successive investigations of the same issue, certainly two, and in some cases three or even four times. It would also mean that the appellate court was expected to undertake a task for which it is unsuited, having not heard the evidence or seen the parties for itself.”

In my judgment, the points advanced by Mr Seifert on the appellant’s behalf in this case do not surmount these two hurdles.

The short answer to Mr Seifert’s first point, about Mr Krakowiak’s health, is the District Judge’s finding, at [45] of her judgment, that if Mr Krakowiak were unable to look after the appellant’s son, the appellant’s mother or other family members were “clearly willing and able to provide assistance”. This finding was made after having heard all the evidence, including that of the appellant and Mr Krakowiak. It was the latter who had said that, in the event of the appellant’s extradition he would return to Poland with the appellant’s son to live with her mother. There is no proper basis for disturbing that finding of fact.

Neither A&B v Hungary, nor Bakai v Hungary, establishes that a social services report is required in every case. Section 7 of the Children Act 1989 confers a power to ask a local authority to arrange for such a report, but it is a matter for the court to determine on the facts of each case whether that power should be exercised. In A&B, both parents were to be extradited and there was “no cogent plan whatever in place as to what is to happen to this child” if that happened; and it was assumed that the child (who was nine years old) would remain in the UK. Here, although the appellant was represented, no-one suggested to the District Judge that a social services report was necessary. There was evidence that the child would return to Poland. The District Judge was entitled to conclude that she had enough evidence to make the findings at [45] of her judgment and that it was not necessary to inquire further into the precise mechanics of the return to Poland.

As to Mr Seifert’s second point (about the seriousness of the offences), it is important to recall that this was a conviction warrant. The Practice Direction, on its face, applies only to cases under s. 21A, where the requested person has not been convicted, so does not apply here. That is because, in a conviction warrant case, the court of the requesting state had already reflected its view about the seriousness of the appellant’s conduct in the sentence it has imposed. For these purposes, the conduct includes both the original offences in 2008 and the appellant’s conduct in breaching the terms of her conditional release in 2015. At [40(2)] of his judgment in Andrysziewicz, Lord Lloyd-Jones (with whom the other members of the Appellate Committee agreed) emphasised the importance of the following passage from [13] of the Divisional Court’s judgment in Celinski:

“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.”

Bearing all this in mind, the District Judge’s observation that the offences for which the appellant was sought were “not the most serious” cannot be faulted in any way.

The importance attached by the requesting state to compliance with the conditions of release is also to be borne in mind when considering Mr Seifert’s third point. It is true that there was some delay between the original offences and the conviction. However, the breach of conditions occurred in 2015, when the appellant fled the country. Given the District Judge’s findings as to her fugitive status, I do not consider that the omission to consider the effect of delay reflected any error of approach.

Finally, the District Judge was well aware that these were not offences of the particular seriousness and of the likely effect of separation on the child. Given her extensive experience of performing the Article 8 balancing exercise in cases of this kind, she was very well-placed to reach a view about whether and to what extent the case was “out of the ordinary”. Her judgment was not wrong in the relevant sense.

For these reasons, the appeal is dismissed.