[imagesource: UK Database]

In 2000, Lee Nigel Tucker was convicted on charges of sexually assaulting boys, between the ages of 12 and 15, in the UK.

He wasn’t present at that trial, having fled to Cape Town, but he appealed the ruling in absentia and successfully overturned the conviction in 2002.

The UK’s Court of Appeal did order a retrial, with further investigations seeing him charged with 49 sexual offences against eight complainants, who were aged between 12 and 15 at the time.

In 2016, Interpol and the UK government learnt that he was living in Cape Town, and he was arrested in Green Point after officers entered his home on the premise that they were investigating a break-in.

That same year, the UK applied for Tucker to be extradited so that he could face the charges, and he has been fighting that extradition ever since.

He recently scored a win via the Constitutional Court, reports IOL, against the Director of Public Prosecutions, Western Cape (DPP):

The two parties had squared off over whether a magistrate, that presided in his pre-extradition hearing, committed a grave irregularity against Tucker.

This irregularity, Tucker held, was the magistrate’s refusal to hear expert evidence on his claim that he would not get a fair trial in the UK.

The former helicopter pilot and IT consultant alleged that the country’s laws discriminated against gay men.

The ruling by the magistrate resulted in Tucker being detained at the Pollsmoor Maximum Security Prison, pending a decision by the justice minister on his extradition.

Justice Leona Theron, who penned the majority ConCourt judgment, said that the magistrate was legally bound to allow the evidence Tucker wanted to submit.

The matter has now been remitted to the magistrate.

It could be a short-lived reprieve, but it’s a reprieve nonetheless.

[source:iol]