• Publications
• • Transparency
    • Board declarations
      • NCA Board: Registers of Interest
        • Archived Registers of interest
      • NCA Board: Expenses
        • Archived expenses
      • NCA Board: Gifts & Hospitality
        • Archived gifts & hospitality
      • NCA Board: Summaries of meetings
    • Exceptions to spend controls
    • Workforce management information
    • Infrastructure and Projects Authority data
  • European Arrest Warrant statistics
    • Wanted from the UK: EAW statistics
    • Wanted by the UK: EAW statistics
    • Historical EAW statistics
  • Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs)
  • Modern Slavery Human Trafficking statistics (National Referral Mechanism)
  • Draft Investigatory Powers Bill

European Arrest Warrant statistics

The European Arrest Warrant (EAW) is a mechanism by which individuals wanted in relation to significant crimes are extradited between EU member states to face prosecution or to serve a prison sentence for an existing conviction. In the UK extradition policy is owned by the Home Office.

The role of the NCA in respect of EAWs

Every country in the EAW system has a Sirene (Supplementary Information Request at the National Entry) Bureau. In the UK this is the NCA. Sirene Bureaux are the legal gateways between authorities requesting an arrest and those carrying out an arrest.

The NCA’s role is to assess the proportionality and legal validity of EAW requests into and out of the UK, against criteria in the Extradition Act 2003. The NCA places validated EAWs on national systems and, in high risk cases, carries out work to locate offenders and alert the relevant authority, usually the local police force.

EAW requests which are not validated are returned to the requesting authority for further action.

It is not the role of the NCA to look at the evidence a warrant is based on or decide if an extradition is ordered. In the UK, these are judicial matters. If an extradition is ordered by the court following an arrest, the NCA facilitates the return of the wanted person.

Who else is involved in the EAW process?

• Sirene Bureaux and issuing judicial authorities (IJAs) in other member states. The Bureaux exchange EAWs via the Schengen Information System (SIS II).
• The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service, which is the central authority for Scotland. Along with the Crown Prosecution Service (for England and Wales) and the Crown Solicitors Office (for Northern Ireland), they issue EAWs on behalf of UK police forces when a subject is in another member state. They also represent other member states’ prosecution authorities in seeking extradition from the UK.
• UK police forces and other law enforcement agencies, which typically make the initial request for an EAW for subjects in another EU country. Police will also arrest subjects in the UK who are wanted by other EU countries
• Westminster Magistrates Court (for England and Wales), Edinburgh Sheriff Court (for Scotland) and Belfast Magistrates Court (for Northern Ireland), which hold EAW extradition hearings. The judge or sheriff decides if extradition should be ordered. The Appeal Courts and the Supreme Court may also become involved if appeals are lodged.
• European police forces. Subjects being extradited from the UK will be handed over to the requesting police force.

Understanding the Statistics

The statistics are broken down as follows:

• Wanted from the UK (Part 1) - where the individual is wanted by another EU jurisdiction
• Wanted by the UK (Part 3) - individuals wanted by the UK and believed to be in another jurisdiction
• Historical data - all EAW cases processed by the NCA and its predecessors. Note that the data for 2004 to 2009 is totals only, it is not possible to break down this data.

It is important to understand the differences between requests, arrests and surrenders.

Requests: The number of requests received by the UK does not represent the number of wanted people in the UK. Some member states issue requests to numerous member states when they do not know where a subject may be. A large proportion of the requests received by the UK will be for people who are not, and never have been, in the UK. Similarly it would be inaccurate to calculate the number of wanted people in Europe by adding together the total number of requests for every member state. To do this would count the same individuals many times over.

Arrests: This represents the number of people who have been identified as being in the UK and have been arrested, usually by the local police force.

Surrenders: People arrested on an EAW have the right to appeal against or to contest their extradition. The surrenders figure represents the number of people who - having either failed in their appeal or chosen not to appeal - are extradited.

It is also worth noting that request, arrest and surrender figures do not necessarily relate to the same group of people, in the same year, given that processes and timescales can overlap.

Recent changes in recording EAW data

The UK joined the law enforcement element of the Schengen Information System (SIS II) on 13 April 2015. This is a Europe-wide means of sharing information to assist law enforcement and border control. In preparation for joining, the NCA, as the UK’s Sirene Bureau, changed the way Part 1 cases are recorded. Previously, low-risk or non-UK cases were not recorded as individual requests. Now all requests, irrespective of a UK connection, are recorded. This has resulted in a higher number in 2014/15 than in previous years.

Appeals at the High Court:

• The subject may appeal an extradition order within 7 days.
• If the High Court rejects that appeal, the subject can then argue for referral to the Supreme Court on a ‘point of law’. Permission to go to the Supreme Court can only be granted by the High Court.
• If the High Court does not give permission on the point of law for referral to the Supreme Court, all UK routes are exhausted.
• The final potential route for appeal would be the European Court of Human Rights, but only if all UK court processes have been exhausted.
• If referral to the Supreme Court is granted by the High Court, but the Supreme Court does not then uphold the appeal, the only remaining route for appeal would be the ECHR.

If there is no appeal, or an appeal is unsuccessful, there is a period of 10 days within which the subject must be removed.