Press round-up: Deborah Dark
July 27 2009- The Sunday Telegraph: Grandmother spent month in Spanish jail over 20-year-old arrest warrant
- BBC News: UK grandmother 'wanted' by France
- The Times: Grandmother ‘wanted’ by France for 20-year-old crime
- America Online: British grandmother wanted in France
The Sunday Telegraph: Grandmother spent month in Spanish jail over 20-year-old arrest warrant
A grandmother on a family holiday spent a month in a Spanish jail because of a European Arrest warrant issued in France 20 years ago without her knowledge.
Deborah Dark was held in a high-security prisonin Madrid after being arrested on arrival while travelling with daughter and one-year-old twin grandsons.
Spanish police were acting on an extradition order from France of which Mrs Dark was unaware.
Mrs Dark, a housekeeper-secretary to a foreign diplomat based in London, eventually realised that the problem stemmed from an incident in France 20 years ago, when she was acquitted of a drugs offence – and from the controversial system of European Arrest Warrants, which were designed to make extradition easier but which have been criticised for being overused and for having no inbuilt time limits.
Now, even after judges in Britain and Spain threw out a request from France to extradite her, Mrs Dark remains too frightened to travel abroad, and Fair Trials International, the campaigning group, claims that her case highlights flaws in the arrest warrant system.
The warrants have already proved controversial in cases such as that of Dr Fredrick Toben, the Australian-based academic who was arrested at Heathrow last year on a warrant issued by German authorities over charges of Holocaust denial, which is an offence in Germany but not in Britain. He was later freed.
Mrs Dark, 45, said last night: "This has ruined my life. I've had to give up a dream job and I'm now a prisoner in my own country."
Her legal nightmare began in 1988 when Mrs Dark, a former boarding school pupil, was driving home from a holiday in Marbella, Spain. At the French border, her hire car was stopped and searched by customs officers. Several kilograms of cannabis was found hidden underneath the floor and in the sunroof.
Mrs Dark, who was travelling with her daughter Clare, then aged eight, told the French authorities that she had no knowledge of the drugs, and that she suspected her then-boyfriend, a petty criminal with drugs convictions, of setting her up.
"I was only 24 and very naïve," she told The Sunday Telegraph. "I'd only known my boyfriend for about nine months and when he asked me to hire the car in my name because he didn't have a driving licence, I did it unthinkingly."
It was a costly mistake. At the time she was held for over eight months in prison, but when the case came to court, her defence was accepted and she was acquitted. She returned to the UK, ended her relationship and has not seen the boyfriend since.
However, unknown to both her and her lawyer, the prosecution appealed and a French court sentenced her, in her absence, to a six-year jail term in 1990. The court then obtained an International Arrest Warrant, the forerunner to the European Arrest Warrant – but, although she travelled to France at least three times between 1990 and 2006, she encountered no problems.
In 2005, with Mrs Dark, of Ham, south west London, still unaware of her conviction, the public prosecutor in the French town of Pau, in the Pyrenees, applied for and was granted a European Arrest Warrant. The warrants, introduced into UK law in 2004, make the extradition process in Europe a virtual rubber stamp.
The next trip Mrs Dark took abroad was her ill-fated Turkish holiday in 2007. She said last night: "I knew something was wrong as soon as I arrived at passport control, when customs police arrested me at gunpoint.
"Immediately I got home, I went straight to the police and the Serious Organised Crime Agency but they told me there was no outstanding warrant listed.
In October 2008, after visiting her pensioner father, Robert McNally, who lives near Alicante, Spain, she was arrested at the airport on the way home. "They showed me a photo from 1988 to confirm that I was the same person and told me they had bad news. I was to be extradited to France to serve six years in jail. I collapsed in shock.
After her month in the Madrid prison, a Spanish judge threw out the extradition request because of the passage of time. Yet when Mrs Dark landed back at Gatwick, she was immediately rearrested under the same warrant and held for 24 hours in Holloway prison before being freed on bail.
It took a further seven months before a Deputy Senior District Judge, Daphne Wickham, gave her verdict. In a hearing at City of Westminster Magistrates Court in April this year, the judge noted that the French had been unable to account for their "inactivity" between 1990 and 2005, and that Mrs Dark had not committed any crimes since 1989 and was closely involved in the care of her young grandchildren.
She ruled that because of the passage of time, a retrial would be "oppressive and carry a risk of prejudice to Deborah Dark and this must be unjust". The extradition request was thrown out.
The chief executive of Fair Trials International, Jago Russell, believes Mrs Dark's ordeal illustrates the flaws in the European Arrest Warrant. He said: "This is a shocking example of the way in which a system intended to produce justice has created a blatant injustice. The warrant could have been designed with a time-limit built in but it wasn't. We're calling on the British government to support our efforts to have the warrant against Mrs Dark withdrawn."
For Mrs Dark, who lives alone in a one-bedroom flat, the ordeal is never-ending. "I daren't take the risk of visiting my father in Spain. I've lost a responsible job, I'm heavily in debt and my health has been shattered. I don't think I'll ever recover from it."
BBC News: UK grandmother 'wanted' by France
A British grandmother is being pursued by France for a crime she was convicted of in her absence 20 years ago.
Deborah Dark, 45, from London, was acquitted of a drugs offence in 1989 - but found guilty and sentenced to six years on appeal without being told.
France issued a European Arrest Warrant in 2005 but recent extradition attempts have failed in both the UK and Spain.
UK charity Fair Trials International said the warrant system was creating a "blatant injustice" against her.
'Never forget'
Ms Dark, from Richmond in south-west London, was arrested in France in 1989 in a car containing several kilos of cannabis.
A French court believed her defence that she been set up by an abusive boyfriend and was acquitted.
But she was unaware the prosecution appealed without telling her after she returned to the UK and she was found guilty and sentenced in 1990.
A European Arrest Warrant was issued by the French authorities for Ms Dark to be returned to France to serve her jail term.
Ms Dark told the BBC of the effect that still being officially wanted in France had had on her.
She said: "It's destroyed me, and to see my daughter to go through all that pain again. I just will never forget it.
"I can't leave the country. If I leave the country I will be arrested because I'm still on the European Arrest Warrant."
'Shocking example'
In 2007 she was arrested on a package holiday at a Turkish airport but the authorities were unable to give her a reason.
On her return to the UK the British police could not find any warrants against her.
When Ms Dark travelled to visit her retired father in Spain in 2008 she was arrested and spent one month in custody.
But a Spanish court refused to extradite her on the grounds of unreasonable delay and the significant passage of time.
When she returned to the UK she was arrested by British police at Gatwick airport and released on bail pending an extradition hearing. Magistrates refused extradition in April this year.
Fair Trials International said Ms Dark was effectively being "imprisoned in the UK".
Chief executive Jago Russell said: "Deborah's case is a shocking example of the way a system intended to deliver justice has created a blatant injustice.
"The European Arrest Warrant should have been designed with a time-limit built in but it wasn't.
"The result - a person's life can be turned upside down for an event alleged to have happened 20 years ago."
The Times: Grandmother ‘wanted’ by France for 20-year-old crime
A British grandmother has become a fugitive from the French judicial system, wanted for a conviction that she never knew she had.
Deborah Dark, 45, from Richmond, West London, was blissfully unaware of her status as a wanted woman when she went to visit her elderly father in Spain. Her plight became clear only as she tried to return home. At the airport she was arrested and incarcerated for a month, as French authorities sought to have her extradited to serve a six-year sentence.
Though a Spanish judge denied the request she was arrested again on her return to London. A European Arrest Warrant has been issued and authorities in every member state of the EU are obliged to detain her should she set foot in their country.
The alleged offence for which Mrs Dark is now being pursued is from 1988, when she was 24 and was driving home from a holiday in Marbella, Spain, with her eight-year-old daughter. At the French border, customs searched her car and found several kilograms of cannabis beneath the floor and in the sunroof.
Mrs Dark told the French police that she had been unaware of the drugs, and suspected that her boyfriend of nine months was responsible. He had asked her to hire a car in her name, she said.
A French court believed her account and she was acquitted after eight months on remand. She went home and ended her relationship with her boyfriend.
The prosecution subsequently made a successful appeal and in 1990 Mrs Dark was sentenced in her absence to six years in prison. Neither she nor her lawyer were made aware of this, either at the time or during the next two decades. During that time Mrs Dark travelled to France on several occasions, unaware of her status as a convicted criminal.
In 2005 a public prosecutor in the town of Pau, in southwest France, applied for and was granted a European Arrest Warrant. Still unaware of this stain on her reputation, Mrs Dark went on holiday to Turkey with a friend in 2007.
“I knew something was wrong as soon as I arrived at passport control,” she said. “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 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.”
A year later, returning from Spain with her daughter and two grandchildren, she was again stopped and imprisoned. She was made aware of the warrant. A Spanish court refused to execute it, on the ground that too much time had passed since the alleged offence.
Arrested again upon her return to Britain, she was bailed to await another extradition hearing. The City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court also refused to extradite her, the judge questioning whether she could be given a fair trial so long after the event. Nevertheless, she says that her life has been shattered by the ordeal and the threat of arrest has left her confined to Britain. She has lost her job, has become indebted and is unable to visit her ageing father.
Fair Trials International said that her case “demonstrates a serious problem with Europe’s fast-track extradition system”. It has called upon the French authorities to drop their request for her extradition.
America Online: British grandmother wanted in France
-- Deborah Dark, 45, has been a fugitive in France for 20 years -- without knowing it.
The grandmother from London has lost her job and gone into debt after discovering her criminal status when she attempted to travel internationally and landed in police custody.
When Dark was 24 in 1988, she was stopped at a French border while on her way home from a vacation in Spain. Agents searched her car and uncovered cannabis under the floor and in the sunroof, reported The Times of London.
A French court believed her when she said she hadn't known she was transporting the drug and suspected her boyfriend was responsible. She was acquitted and went home to Britain.
But what Dark and her lawyer said they didn't know was that the prosecution later appealed successfully and sentenced her to six years in prison in her absence.
It wasn't until 2007, when she tried to travel with a friend to Turkey, that she ran into trouble.
"I knew something was wrong as soon as I arrived at passport control," she said, according to Fair Trials International, a group based in London.
"Customs police arrested me at gunpoint," but no one there or back on her home turf could find an outstanding warrant.
"I assumed it must have been a dreadful error," Dark said.
She ran into the same problem when she returned from Spain a year later, though, and was arrested both in Spain and back in Britain. She finally learned that there was a warrant for her arrest issued in 2005.
Although courts in Spain and Britain have refused to extradite Dark, saying too much time had passed, the French are still seeking her return. She says that makes her a prisoner at home, unable to leave the country to visit her elderly father in Spain.
Fair Trials International is calling on French authorities to drop their request for her extradition.