Deborah Dark - France

Deborah Dark’s case demonstrates a serious problem with Europe’s fast-track extradition system, and is one we have highlighted in our Justice in Europe: The Arrest Warrant campaign. She has spent the last twenty years re-building her life following a horrendous ordeal in the late 1980s.

In the past year the life of this grandmother of two has been destroyed following her arrest and detention in Turkey, Spain and the UK. Deborah is being pursued by the French authorities to serve a prison sentence following a twenty-year old conviction she knew nothing about. Although courts in both the UK and Spain have now agreed that it would be unjust to return her to France, the French are still seeking her extradition. Deborah is too afraid to leave the UK, unable to visit her pensioner father in Spain.

• Background
• Arrest in Turkey
• Arrest and detention in Spain
• Arrest and trial in UK
• Fair trial concerns
• Justice in Europe: The Arrest Warrant campaign

Background

In 1989, Deborah Dark, a British citizen, was arrested in France on suspicion of drug related offences and held for eight and a half months awaiting trial. The French court found her not guilty of all charges; she was released from jail, and returned to the UK.

Unbeknownst to Deborah and following her return to the UK, lawyers for the prosecution appealed the verdict. Neither Deborah nor her lawyer was notified of the appeal. Deborah was, therefore, unable to arrange to be present in court or to secure legal representation for the hearing. In 1990, the French Court of Appeal overturned the original verdict, sentencing her to 6 years’ in prison.

Deborah remained unaware the appeal had taken place and, again, was not notified of the decision: as far as she was concerned she had been found not guilty of all charges.

Arrest in Turkey

In 2007, Deborah took a trip to Turkey with a friend. Deborah says “I knew something was wrong as soon as I arrived at passport control. Customs police arrested me at gunpoint and I was strip-searched and handcuffed. I kept asking why and all they said was ‘ask Interpol’. As soon as I got home, I went straight to the police and told them what had happened. They searched their databases and told me there was no outstanding warrant listed. I went to the Serious Organised Crime Agency and they said the same thing. So I assumed it must have been a dreadful error.”

In fact in April 2005, fifteen years after the conviction on appeal, French authorities had issued a European Arrest Warrant for Deborah to be extradited to France to serve the sentence imposed in 1990.

Arrest and detention in Spain

In 2008, still unaware of the arrest warrant, she travelled to Spain to visit her pensioner father who had retired there. When she arrived at the airport in Spain, to take her flight home to the UK, she was arrested by authorities and taken into custody to await extradition to France. Deborah refused to consent to the extradition and, after spending a month in remand, was granted a hearing.

The Spanish court refused to execute the European Arrest Warrant on the grounds of unreasonable delay and the significant passage of time. Under Spanish law, limitations are placed on how much time can pass after which a person can no longer be extradited to face trial or serve a sentence. Twenty years had passed since the date that the alleged offences were committed; the court deemed this too long. The court also recognized that there was no chance that Deborah could be given a fair retrial at this time: evidence had disappeared and witnesses had either died or would not have remembered the events.

Arrest and trial in the UK

Following the Spanish decision, Deborah was released and took a flight back to the UK in October 2008. Upon arrival at Gatwick airport, she was immediately re-arrested, this time by British police, under the same European Arrest Warrant. Once again, she refused to consent to the extradition. She was held overnight at Holloway prison but, this time, was granted bail while she awaited the hearing.

In April of this year, the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court refused to extradite Deborah. The decision was again based on the passage of time and the judge expressly stated that Deborah would be at risk of prejudice if extradited, and would not receive a fair trial. The judge found that “there is a risk of prejudice to Deborah Dark in the conduct of the retrial itself and this must be unjust.”

However, the European Arrest Warrant remains in place, requiring authorities in each EU member state to detain Deborah if she steps foot in their country. Any trip abroad can trigger this. After two courts have refused to uphold the warrant, Deborah’s situation still remains unresolved and she is fearful to leave the UK, lest she be arrested once again. In effect she is imprisoned in the UK, too scared to visit her elderly father in Spain.

Fair Trials International is calling on France to remove their request for Deborah Dark’s extradition under a European Arrest Warrant. We urge the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office to support this, and use what influence they may have to ensure French authorities immediately drop their request for Deborah’s extradition.

Fair Trial concerns

• FTI is concerned that Deborah Dark was tried in her absence following flaws in notification procedures. The appeal should not have taken place without her being informed of it.

• FTI is concerned by the unjustifiable delays in the procedure and in particular by the facts, that no efforts were made by the police to arrest Deborah before 2008. In 2008, 20 years had passed since the incident.

• Due to the passage of time, Deborah could never receive a fair trial in France: witnesses may not be available and if they can be made available it is likely that they will be unable to remember the incident. Moreover, although Deborah’s court file is still in existence, the ink has faded and some documents and telexes are illegible.

• The current European Arrest Warrant scheme lacks a straightforward system for individuals to obtain the withdrawal of the warrant after a judicial decision has been taken to refuse to execute it. There is even greater concern where the reasoning leading to that decision (eg: the passage of time) would be followed by courts in virtually every member state of the European Union.

• Deborah Dark’s freedom of movement within the European Union and basic rights are violated: she is unable to travel outside the UK, as she would be at risk of being arrested again on the same EAW. In particular, she is unable to visit her father, a pensioner living in Spain.

Fair Trials International has serious concerns about the injustices resulting from Europe’s fast-track extradition system, read more here.