22nd November- Westminster Magistrates Court, Extradition Hearing

The day didn't get off to a good start at all! The previous evening 18.30 we received documents for submission to court the following morning. These should have been submitted for the last hearing and then not to be any later than 18th November. To say I was livid would be about right, this left us no time to scrutinise the documents or to formulate a response in time for court. We were planning to leave home at 5 am in the morning to travel to London by train. The stress of all that meant no sleep that night.

I outlined my views in a strongly worded e mail to the lawyer and Barrister just for the record!

Once at Westminster Magistrates Court and after speaking to some familiar journalists we went in to meet up with Ben Cooper, Richard's Barrister. After some discussion and liaison with the Barrister for the US, he agreed not to admit his late statement on the extradition offence. Once in court the judge then agreed not to re-open the arguments on extradition offence and dual criminality. Ben Cooper was pleased with this since even though Richard had amended his statement and provided new information Ben felt where we had left that argument last time was in a good position.

This hearing then concentrated on Human Rights and proportionality. Judgement will now be reserved until January 13th 2012 when we will learn whether the argument on "linking" has been successful.Here are some press links from this hearing.

BBC News
Sky News
Indy News

The Telegraph Report Yorkshire Post

Sheffield Star News

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