Two High Court judges yesterday gave warning that the extradition laws may need reform after ruling that a Lithuanian fugitive accused of attempted rape and sexual assault can avoid trial in Britain.

Their comments came as they ruled that criminal proceedings in a foreign country should take precedence over proceedings in Britain in the case of the man accused of sexual offences in both.

He is wanted for trial in Lithuania, accused of rape and sexual assault on two girls, aged 13 and 16.

He is also wanted in Cambridgeshire on suspicion of false imprisonment and the attempted rape of a woman. The judges criticised as “unsatisfactory” the fact that the Extradition Act 2003 had allowed the man to “call the tune” simply by consenting to extradition.

They said that under the law, domestic criminal proceedings could be rendered subordinate to foreign proceedings, “regardless of the relative seriousness of the charges in this country and those abroad”.

As a result, the judges said, they had no choice but to interpret the 2003 Act according to “the common law rules of construction”.

They suggested that the legislation, which had already “thrown up a number of problems”, might now need amending.

The Lithuanian case arose after the governor of Wandsworth prison in southwest London faced a dilemma this year over whether to produce the suspected sex offender for an extradition hearing, or subject him to domestic criminal proceedings at Cambridge Crown Court.

Lord Justice Laws and Mr Justice Beatson ruled at the High Court yesterday that the prison governor must produce the accused for the extradition hearing at City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

Lord Justice Laws ruled that the duty to extradite to Lithuania had priority under the 2003 Act because the prisoner had “called the tune” by consenting to his extradition.

Lord Justice Laws said that Parliament might have intended that domestic criminal proceedings should take precedence over an extradition request, but that was not how the legislators had drafted that part of the 2003 Act dealing with cases in which there had been early consent to extradition.

The judge said: “I can see no sensible reason why there should be a different rule in a case where a fugitive consents to his extradition. It cannot have been intended that he should call the tune as to what proceedings he should face first.”

The judge said that a plea had been for the court “to make good the deficiency of the legislature” and rule that the domestic trial should take precedence as the man “had no right to be extradited”. But the judge ruled: “We cannot correct the mistakes of the legislature by adopting impermissible modes of interpretation.”

Mr Justice Beatson agreed, observing that the 2003 Act “has thrown up a number of problems”.

This case was another where there had been an “unsatisfactory result” and there was a need for an amendment to the Act. He said: “It is the subordination of domestic criminal proceedings to foreign proceedings where the person whose extradition is sought consents to extradition at an early stage of the process.

“This is so, regardless of the relative seriousness of the charges in this country and those abroad.”

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