Dunham & Anor v and Government of the United States

Judgment

Mr Justice Simon:

Introduction and background

By requests dated 1 May 2012, the Government of the United States of America (‘the US Government’) sought the extradition of the Appellants, who are husband and wife, in order that each of them should stand trial for offences of dishonesty in the United States of America.

The USA is designated as a Category 2 territory; and the request is therefore governed by the provisions of Part 2 of the Extradition Act 2003 (‘the 2003 Act’); and the extradition requests were certified pursuant to s.70 of the 2003 Act by the Secretary of State for the Home Department on 18 May 2012.

There was a hearing before District Judge Zani at Westminster Magistrates Court on 13 June 2013; and, on 8 July, he ruled that there were no bars to extradition, and sent the case to the Secretary of State for a decision on whether the Appellants should be extradited. On 23 August 2013 the Secretary of State ordered the Appellants’ extradition.

This is the appeal from the decision of the District Judge. The appeal against the Secretary of State, who was joined as Second Respondent, has been dismissed by consent; and the only Respondent to this appeal is now the US Government.

Similar issues arise on this appeal as arose in the Magistrates Court: whether the extradition should be barred under s.87 of the 2003 Act , on the basis that to order the Appellants’ extradition would be a disproportionate infringement of their rights under article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as secured by the Human Rights Act 1998 .

The facts as found by the District Judge at §6 of his decision can be briefly summarised. Both appellants worked for a US company, Pace Inc, from 2002 to 2009. Pace Inc is an electronics company (specialising in soldering equipment), with offices both in the USA and in the United Kingdom. The Appellants are alleged to have defrauded their employer by the dishonest misuse of company credit cards and by rendering dishonest claims for expense on the basis that they had been incurred on the companies’ behalf.

It is alleged that, having been given company credit cards to be used for company business, Mr Dunham charged personal expenditure to these cards. It is also said that he disguised personal expenses as company business expenses; that both Appellants received reimbursement for these expenses from the Pace Inc and Pace Europe by the rendering of false documentation; and that the same sums were claimed in resp