Supreme Court finds no offence in 'cheating' extradition case

A Scotsman who was arrested here has won his Supreme Court appeal against an order for his extradition to England on a charge…

A Scotsman who was arrested here has won his Supreme Court appeal against an order for his extradition to England on a charge of cheating the Inland Revenue.

There is no corresponding common law offence in Ireland of cheating the Revenue, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday when granting the appeal of Anthony Karl Frank Baird Hilton against a High Court order for his extradition

"If the offence of cheating the public revenue were extant, it would appear there were many opportunities for it to have been used extensively by the Revenue Commissioners over the last decades," Ms Justice Denham remarked. "Yet it was not. This absence of use may be for many reasons - including the fact that the offence was not understood to exist in the criminal law of the State."

Mr Hilton, formerly of Glasnacardoch Hotel, Mallaig, Invernesshire, in his capacity as director of a number of companies including Hilton Transport Services Limited, had been charged before Southampton court of failing, on dates between 1991 and 2001, to pay certain taxes and allowing companies under his control to continue trading while unable to pay debts and therefore cheating the public revenue contrary to common law. He was freed on bail but failed to turn up in court in April 2002 and came here.

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Ms Justice Denham said that prior to 1922 there was an offence in common law in Ireland of "cheating" but there was no reference to it being an offence of cheating the public revenue.

There was no record of any person having been prosecuted in Ireland in the last 100 years for cheating the public revenue. While that did not prove the offence did not exist, it was a relevant and weighty factor, she said. It was also interesting that the Law Reform Commission Report on the Law relating to Dishonesty 1992 did not describe any offence of cheating the public revenue in Ireland.

Common law was judge-made law, but no decision by any judge of this State on such an offence had been presented.

There was "a degree of fantasy" in this case, Ms Justice Denham said.

The court was referred to an offence which probably existed in the late 1890s. It had not been used in Irish prosecutions since and had not been the subject of common law in this State. Nor had it been the subject of academic analysis.

"Not wishing to adopt an Alice in Wonderland approach or to legislate, I am satisfied the law is so vague and uncertain as to lead to the only possible conclusion, being that no Irish common law offence of cheating the public revenue, however admirable such an offence might be, exists."