Extradition warrant adequately describes requested person’s role in group attack
[2026] EWHC 2400 (Admin)
Case No: AC-2026-LON-002448
Thursday, 17 September 2026
Before: FORDHAM J
Between:
[OMISSIS] — Appellant
-and-
BIELSKO-BIALA DISTRICT COURT (POLAND) — Respondent
George Hepburne Scott (instructed by GSG Law) for the Applicant
Michael McHardy (instructed by CPS) for the Respondent
Hearing date: 17.9.2026
Judgment as delivered in open court at the hearing
Approved Judgment
FORDHAM J
Note: This judgment was produced and approved by the Judge, after authorising the use by the Court of voice-recognition software during an ex tempore judgment.
FORDHAM J:
1. I am refusing the renewed application for permission to appeal in this case. The Appellant is aged 35 and is wanted for extradition to Poland on an accusation Extradition Arrest Warrant (ExAW) dated 29 January 2026, on which he was arrested on 4 February 2026. Extradition was ordered by DJ King on 21 May 2026 for the reasons set out in a comprehensive 29-page judgment. The question for me is whether it is reasonably arguable that the Judge was wrong to find the particulars of the alleged offence to be legally adequate (Extradition Act 2003 s.2(4)(c)) and sufficient for identifying an extradition offence (s.10). Mr Hepburne Scott has rightly accepted throughout that the s.10 point is consequential. It stands or falls with the s.2 point. In the language which Mr McHardy used in his opening note before the Judge it “rises and falls” with s.2.
2. The Judge set out the law as to s.2 legally adequate particulars in great detail and with great care. 16 principles were identified by the Judge over the course of 3 pages in the judgment, citing 20 authorities. As Mr Hepburne Scott rightly recognises, the clear focus and reference-point for the appeal can and should be the Judge’s analysis of the law. Nowhere is it said on behalf of the Appellant that the Judge was wrong in his description of the law. No misdescription or omission is identified. Rather, this case concerns the application of the established principles from the leading authorities.
3. At the heart of the case is Box E within the ExAW. Box E requires a description “including the time, place and degree of participation in the offence(s) by the requested person”. What is then described is the alleged offence committed by the Appellant, identifying the date (22 June 2025) and location (a multi-family building at 3 Lipnicka Street in Bielsko-Biala in Poland), and the victim (Przemyslaw Szlechta). The accusation which is set out in Box E is this. The Appellant is described, by his name, on that date and at that location, as “having … acting jointly and in concert with other identified individuals, by inflicting blows and kicks with his hands, as well as jumping on the head and the whole body of the victim, and inflicting two stab wounds with a sharp knife tool with a blade length of 18 centimetres – caused a series of severe injuries of [the victim] … which eventually led to the death of [the victim]. Afterwards, the suspect set fire to the flat where the victim’s body was lying … Throughout the crime, he acted with particular cruelty”. The victim’s severe injuries are described in considerable detail and do not require repetition here.
4. Applying the relevant principles of legally adequate particulars from the case-law, the Judge found that the ExAW sets out the involvement which the Appellant is himself said to have had, namely: “inflicting” blows and kicks; “jumping” on the victim’s head and body; and “inflicting” two stab wounds with the 18cm bladed tool. The Judge found that this is more than adequate to fulfil the requirement to set out the conduct alleged to constitute the offence of homicide; that the detail clearly identifies conduct of the Appellant; that the Appellant is able to understand the role he is said to have played and the conduct which is said to amount to the offence of homicide with particular cruelty; and that he is easily able to understand how the case against him is put. As to the parasitic s.10 point, the Judge found that the conduct described, and properly particularised, would constitute the UK offence of murder.
5. Mr Hepburne Scott is right to recognise that the ExAW does attribute violent conduct specifically to the Appellant. That was the Judge’s clear reading of the document, despite the language “in concert with other identified individuals”. It was the Judge’s fair and straightforward reading, of Box E. It is reflected, for instance, in the use of the language “with his hands”; when saying “the suspect”; and when saying “he”. It all falls under the description of “participation … by the requested person”, after naming him. This was a group attack – he was acting with others – but what the Appellant himself is alleged to have done is clearly described. The point is that the various words and phrases used support the clear overall holistic conclusion that the conduct set out is all related to him. There is nothing unclear or speculative.
6. Mr Hepburne Scott has argued that, this being a case involving multiple participants and multiple mechanisms of injury, the description in Box E arguably leaves unparticularised the precise alleged participatory role of the Appellant, as to the basis and degree of his participation, and as to how the alleged acts make him criminally responsible for the homicide. There is here, he says, a key distinction, and a key deficiency, which the Judge failed to recognise, as did Mould J in refusing permission to appeal on the papers. Or at least reasonably arguably so, emphasises Mr Hepburne Scott.
7. I agree with Mr Hepburne Scott that the gravity of the killing does not dilute the need for legally adequate particulars. But, like Mould J on the papers, I can find no reasonably arguable defect within the ExAW, nor any reasonably arguable error within the Judge’s assessment. Box E is not a generic description of what unidentified members of a group allegedly did. It does not beg – but rather it answers – the question of how the Appellant allegedly participated and what he, for his part, allegedly did. The particulars were plainly s.2 adequate, and they plainly allowed the Judge safely to identify the s.10 extradition offence. The rigours, and the purposes, of the statutory requirements were amply met.
8. I record that Mr McHardy has pointed to authority which says that particulars of the precise nature of an accused’s involvement are not needed in the case of a joint enterprise attack, citing Kopycki v Poland [2012] EWHC 722 (Admin) at §10 and Pelka v Poland [2012] EWHC 3989 (Admin) at §§4-5. All of that was a fallback position. The present case is even more straightforward, because the precise involvement is described, as the Judge unimpeachably found. The appeal has no realistic prospect of success on either of the two linked points and so permission to appeal is refused.