European Arrest Warrants

(asked on 30th October 2014) - View Source

Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, how many (a) British nationals and (b) other people have had their extradition from the UK under a European arrest warrant blocked under the proportionality test in section 21A of the Extradition Act 2003 since that Act came into force.


Answered by
James Brokenshire Portrait
James Brokenshire
This question was answered on 13th November 2014

More than 95% of people surrendered under an Arrest Warrant over the past five years have been foreign citizens. Since the reforms in section 21A of the Extradition Act 2003 came into force on 21 July 2014 no Arrest Warrants have been refused to be certified by the National Crime Agency for British nationals, and 21 Arrest Warrants have been refused to be certified for foreign nationals on thebasis of proportionality.
Given the estimated cost of £13,000 for processing an Arrest Warrant, savings in excess of £273,000 are likely to have been made to the taxpayer as a result of those refusals.

Since 21 July 2014 no Arrest Warrants have been discharged by the courts under charge and try provisions, as set out in section 156 of the Anti-Social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014 which inserts section 12A into the Extradition Act 2003. Given this provision is a decision for the courts and has only been in force for three months, we expect that the position will change as individual cases are appealed to higher courts.

Since 21 July 2014, 15 British nationals and 287 foreign nationals have been surrendered from the UK to other Member States under an Arrest Warrant. The offences for which British nationals have been surrendered are as follows:

3 x Fraud
2 x Drug trafficking
2 x Grievous Bodily Harm
1 x Murder/Manslaughter
1 x Rape
1 x Serious Sexual Assault
1 x Immigration & Human Trafficking
1 x Evasion of Duty - over £100,000
1 x Fraud - over £100,000
1 x Assault Occasioning Actual Bodily Harm
1 x Drugs Offences

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