Pretoria - The fate of Lee Nigel Tucker, who was arrested in Cape Town in 2016 after he fled the UK following alleged sexual exploitation of minors in the 1980s, is now in the hands of Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Ronald Lamola.
The Western Cape High Court had ordered that a copy of its judgment be sent to the office of the minister for his decision on whether to surrender Tucker to the UK, in terms of the Extradition Act.
Tucker has for years tried to avoid being extradited, and launched several legal applications against being sent to the UK. The matter even made a turn in the Constitutional Court.
In 1997, the British police launched an investigation into the activities of a paedophile ring which operated in Bristol (England) and in Cardiff, Swansea and Caerphilly (Wales), which resulted in several men being prosecuted. Following the initial convictions, Tucker and two other men were arrested in October and November 1999 and arraigned in the Bristol Crown Court on 31 counts, which involved sexual offences such as “buggery” (sodomy) and indecent assault.
During the trial, the complainants testified that the appellant and his co-accused had non-consensual anal and oral sex with them at various locations in England and Wales, when they were under the age of 16 years, and often at a time when they were drugged or under the influence of alcohol.
At the conclusion of the trial the jury was called upon to render a verdict on 28 of the 31 counts.
In 2000, they found Tucker guilty on nine counts, and his co-accused on 10 counts.
Tucker was not present when the verdict was handed down as he had “jumped” bail and absconded two days earlier.
He was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment, in his absence. Although he was a fugitive, he nonetheless lodged an appeal against his conviction.
In May 2002, the court of appeal in the UK upheld the appeal, and quashed his conviction as well as that of his co-accused. This after the court, among others, found that the verdict could not be regarded as safe, because the trial judge’s summing-up for the jury had been inadequate.
That court, however, directed that, given the seriousness of the offences, Tucker and his co-appellant should be re-tried on the same charges.
A re-indictment on the sexual offences was lodged against Tucker at Bristol Crown Court the following day, and a warrant for his arrest was issued in July 2002.
About 14 years after Tucker absconded, the British police received information that he was living in South Africa.
He was arrested in Cape Town in March 2016 and a formal application for his extradition was presented by the British High Commission a few weeks later.
This has been the subject of various court applications since then, especially as UK authorities indicated that several additional alleged sexual offences will be added to the indictment. Tucker has been awaiting his extradition proceedings in South Africa behind bars.
Included in Tucker’s plethora of reasons not to be extradited, is a claim that he will not receive a fair hearing in the UK. He maintained that British law discriminated unfairly against homosexuals.
A magistrate in 2017 during an extradition inquiry found that there were sufficient grounds to consider his extradition. The magistrate at the time refused to allow Tucker to submit expert evidence regarding his belief that the British legal system discriminated against gay people.
The matter was, however, remitted to the Western Cape High Court for special review as to whether the magistrate erred in his findings.
Two judges now said the matter must be remitted to the minister for a final decision. They also criticised Tucker’s tactics to avoid extradition.
“It has, unfortunately, become commonplace for extraditees who wish to avoid or delay being extradited from this country, to challenge extradition orders by means of ill-founded appeals and reviews which have no merit in them, on the assumption that they have nothing to lose … ”
The judges commented that unnecessary expense is incurred by the SA state, in dealing with applications for extradition from foreign states, and this country is frequently criticised as being a haven for fugitives.
“It must be made clear that our courts will not allow themselves to be misused by extradites who merely seek to delay repatriation to their countries of origin in order that they might face justice, by means of frivolous or vexatious processes … ” the judges said.
Pretoria News