Brand, R (on the application of) v Regional Court In Krakow

Facts

The appellant, Mr Brand, a Polish national, was the subject of a European Arrest Warrant issued by the Regional Court in Krakow seeking his return to Poland to serve the balance — some two years — of sentences totalling three years' imprisonment. The sentences had been imposed for a large number of offences of dishonesty committed in 2001, in which he had been involved with others. The appellant told the court that the investigation was not concluded until 2005, and that the court did not convict and sentence him until April 2008; according to the warrant the sentence took effect on 15 April 2010. District Judge Grant, whose decision was given on 3 November 2011, ordered his extradition, recording that the appellant had absented himself from the final hearing in 2008 and had made scant effort to discover the sentence or to appeal against it despite being legally represented. Before the district judge and on appeal the appellant resisted extradition on two grounds: that Polish prison conditions, given overcrowding, violence and his own build and medical condition, would breach his rights, and that extradition would disproportionately interfere with the family life he had built over some five years in the United Kingdom with his Polish partner and their two young children, for whom he was the breadwinner. He appealed to the Administrative Court, appearing in person with an interpreter.