Man who claims fear of flying loses extradition appeal

A man whose extradition to his native Poland was postponed after he claimed to have a “fear of flying” has lost his appeal against plans to surrender him to the Polish authorities.

Piotr Pawel Skiba is wanted in Poland to serve two prison sentences following his conviction for certain offences in Polish courts

He was arrested in Ireland on foot of a European Arrest Warrant and his surrender to Polish authorities was ordered by the High Court on December 1st.

His surrender was initially supposed to take place on or before Christmas Day and arrangements were made in the normal way for surrender to be effected on December 22th.

As is usual in Ireland, the “envisaged mode of actual surrender” was that Skiba would be placed on a commercial flight from Dublin Airport to Poland and that he would be accompanied on the flight by Polish police officers.

However, his surrender “did not take place as planned”.

Det Sgt Jim Kirwan, of the Garda Extradition Unit, told the High Court that, at the departure gate, Skiba "refused to go and it became apparent that he wasn't going to go except by using more than minimal force".

“The captain of the plane decided at that point that he didn’t want him on his plane,” according to Det Sgt Kirwan.

The attempt to surrender was abandoned and Skiba was returned to Cloverhill Prison.

In the High Court the following day, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys fixed January 5th as the new surrender date because Skiba would not be surrendered within the time provided due to "circumstances beyond the control of the State".

The Court of Appeal upheld the High Court’s order on Thursday.

Giving judgment in the three-judge court, Mr Justice John Edwards said the High Court judge's assessment was conducted with due diligence and was consistent with the relevant evidence actually before him.

Mr Justice Edwards, who sat with president of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice Seán Ryan and Mr Justice Alan Mahon, said he would dismiss the appeal.

As a result, the stay on the order for Skiba’s surrender was accordingly lifted.

On December 12th, Skiba’s solicitor telephoned the Irish authorities advising them that his client had a fear of flying.

Det Sgt Kirwan said he was sceptical about the claim. He observed that no indication concerning the alleged fear of flying had been made on December 1st.

Moreover, no medical evidence had been proferred in support of the claim.

Det Sgt Kirwan said: “I’ve dealt with hundreds of surrenders by air, judge, 99.9 per cent of them going according to plan and I have met many people . . . [who] said they have never been on a plane before and they would be quite anxious and it is normal enough but they didn’t have any problem boarding the plane”.

Mr Skiba’s lawyers contended that the phonecall on December 12th sufficiently put the State on notice of a potential problem and to render it “foreseeable” that r Skiba might refuse to board the aircraft.

As such, it could not then be contended that there were circumstances beyond the control of the relevant parties, Skiba’s lawyers contended. They appealed Mr Justice Humphreys’s order and “in effect” sought the discharge of their client.

Mr Justice Edwards said a matter such as fear of flying is very easily asserted, but before action on foot of it could reasonably be justified there would have to be some assessment of the level of theoretical risk involved.

In assessing the possible implications of an asserted fear of flying an assessor would look to see if the assertion was particularised and supported such as details by the person himself concerning how he had been affected, third party accounts and “optimally” relevant expert testimony.

A bald assertion could do no more than flag a remote and theoretical possibility rather than a foreseeable risk to be actively responded to.

Mr Justice Edwards said there were no details of the degree to which Skiba suffered from the claimed fear or details concerning how he had been affected by it up to that point in time.