Court rules not to surrender convicted sex offender to NI for historic driving offence
Ryan Dunne
The High Court has ruled that the case of a convicted sex offender wanted in Northern Ireland for an historic driving offence after he was released from prison on license is an “exceptional” one, as it rejected the State's application for leave to appeal the refusal of the man’s extradition.
Justice Patrick McGrath said that it would be disproportionate to order the surrender of Paul Lomas (41) to Northern Ireland, bearing in mind that the matters for which he is sought date back some 15 years.
Justice McGrath delivered his ruling on Thursday, after the Minister for Justice applied for leave to appeal the judge’s earlier decision not to surrender Lomas, with an address in Donegal, to the Northern Irish authorities as the respondent had “turned his life around” since his offending.
The surrender of the respondent was sought in respect of six offences: five conviction matters and one accusation matter. The accusation matter related to one charge of driving whilst disqualified in January 2011.
The other matters related to his conviction in the Crown Court in Northern Ireland in June 2010 for three offences of assaulting a police officer and two offences of the breach of a ‘Risk of an Interim Sexual Harm Order’ (RSHO). He received a total sentence of six months' imprisonment, followed by 18 months on licence.
A RSHO can be imposed in respect of a person over 18 who resides or intends to reside in Northern Ireland and who has engaged in sexual activity involving a child or in the presence of a child.
This order was imposed on Lomas after being charged with and subsequently convicted of the unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl under the age of 17 in August 2008.
He pleaded guilty to this offence and was sentenced at Derry Crown Court to 12 months in prison and placed on the Northern Ireland sex offenders register for a period of 10 years.
Having served the custodial sentence of six months for the five conviction matters, Lomas lived between County Donegal and County Tyrone.
Sometime in 2011, he was arrested in the State and detained in Castlerea Prison serving sentences for offences committed here until early 2012. The High Court noted he was in custody in Castlerea when his licence was revoked in Northern Ireland on May 6th, 2011.
Following his release from Castlerea Prison in 2012, he informed the gardaí that he had been made subject to the Northern Ireland sex offenders register in 2009.
He thereafter attended Letterkenny Garda Station for the purpose of signing on in compliance with his obligation under the register and this continued until 2019, when these obligations ceased.
Lomas argued that in circumstances where his obligations under the Northern Irish register were being managed by gardaí in Ireland, the Northern Ireland authorities must have been aware of his presence in Donegal. Lomas contended that there was an unexplained delay of 13 years in issuing the warrant for his surrender.
He said that in that time, he had formed private and family life connections to the State and was unaware that his licence had been revoked.
He submitted that, insofar as the two offences under the Northern Ireland Sexual Offences Act 2003 are concerned, Part 3 of the Sex Offenders Act 2001 is the closest that Irish law gets to provide for anything akin to the interim RSHO.
He argued, however, that these cannot be deemed “sufficiently similar”. For an extradition warrant to be enforceable in Ireland, the alleged offence must correspond with a criminal offence under Irish law.
He further claimed that there was a lack of clarity as to the sentence he would face if surrendered.
In his judgment last December, Justice McGrath noted that the licence revocation arises from the allegation of Driving whilst Disqualified, which he said was a "relatively minor" offence.
“Bearing in mind the nature of the offences and sentence for which his surrender is now sought and the passage of time, this is a case where I conclude it would, given the development of those family circumstances in the intervening time, be disproportionate to order his surrender,” the judge wrote.
The State subsequently applied for leave to appeal this decision.
In delivering his ruling on this application on Thursday, Justice McGrath restated his opinion that this was one of the exceptional cases where it would be disproportionate to order the respondent’s surrender, bearing in mind the age of the case and the type of sentence he is facing.
He said that the respondent had long ago served a custodial sentence for offences that were of “a somewhat serious nature”, so the case had reached the high threshold where his surrender could be refused. Justice McGrath therefore refused the Minister’s application for leave to appeal.
