Woodcock v Government of New Zealand

Under section 11(3)(b) of the Extradition Act 1989, the question is whether it would be unjust or oppressive to return the requested person, not simply whether a domestic trial would now be difficult. The court should consider safeguards available in the requesting state, including its procedures for preventing an unfair trial. Long delay does not create an automatic bar. The issues are fact-sensitive and include the actual risk of trial prejudice, the circumstances of the accused, the gravity of the alleged offences and whether hardship results merely from having lived abroad. There is no fixed time after which extradition becomes unjust or oppressive.

The applicant, a New Zealand citizen and former priest and teacher, faced extradition to New Zealand for trial on 19 alleged sexual offences, mostly dating from 1978 to 1987. The allegations involved 11 complainants and were first reported many years after the alleged events.

After a contested committal hearing, the District Judge found a prima facie case and committed the applicant under section 9(8) of the Extradition Act 1989. The applicant sought habeas corpus and discharge under section 11(3)(b), arguing that the passage of time made his return unjust because he could not receive a fair trial, and oppressive because he had established a settled life in the United Kingdom.

1. Application dismissed. The court held that the applicant’s return would be neither unjust nor oppressive under section 11(3)(b) of the Extradition Act 1989.
2. Following Kakis v Government of the Republic of Cyprus [1978] 1 WLR 779, “unjust” primarily concerns prejudice in the conduct of the trial, while “oppressive” concerns hardship resulting from changes in the accused’s circumstances. The concepts overlap and together address cases where return would not be fair.
3. The statutory question concerns the justice of returning the applicant for trial, rather than the abstract justice of trying him. The court must therefore consider safeguards in the requesting state, including its abuse-of-process jurisdiction. If that court would be bound to conclude that a fair trial was impossible, return would be unjust or oppressive. Here, the New Zealand courts had satisfactory procedures, and were not bound to stop the prosecution.
4. The court rejected any broad rule that delayed sexual-offence prosecutions cannot be fair without scientific or documentary evidence. R v B [2003] 2 Cr App R 13 was distinguished as a decision on its particular facts. The present case involved 11 complainants and substantial supporting evidence. The relevant question remained whether a fair trial was possible in the particular circumstances.
5. Delay alone did not establish injustice. The New Zealand approach, reflected in R v “O” [1999] 1 NZLR 347, required an individual assessment of matters such as unavailable witnesses, lost documents and unreliable or insufficiently specific evidence.
6. The applicant’s settled life in the United Kingdom and the fact that he had left New Zealand freely did not make return oppressive. The gravity of the alleged offences was relevant, and the court should be cautious about treating hardship following a move abroad as a basis for avoiding trial.
7. There was no cut-off point beyond which extradition must inevitably be unjust or oppressive. A trial after 20 years or more might be appropriate, and this was such a case. The application was dismissed, with no order as to costs.