When a young New Zealander returned home from Australia in 2015, he apparently had no idea police there considered him a suspect in a violent crime. 

Nine years later, the man is described as a valued member of his whānau, the breadwinner for his partner and their baby, a worker in stable employment. He has no criminal record. 

But, now his life might be up-ended by an extradition bid by Australian authorities. 

If it is granted, all he has worked for since he came back to New Zealand would be – in the words of a High Court judge - “disrupted if not destroyed”. 

He would be forced to return to Western Australia and – given there is no guarantee he would get bail – would possibly be kept in custody for as long as it takes to resolve his case. 

Court documents state the case in Western Australia could take months, if not years, and the thought of that “terrifies” the man. 

The extradition request from the Commonwealth of Australia is currently progressing through the New Zealand court system. 

The man’s name has been suppressed. He lives in a small community in the North Island and for most of the last 10 years, he has been oblivious to the fact that Australian police have been looking for him. 

A warrant for his arrest was issued in Western Australia in June 2015, but the extradition request was not received in New Zealand until 2022. 

The unsuspecting man made no attempt to hide. In fact, he travelled to and from Australia several times without knowing he was a wanted man in that country, and without being challenged when he crossed the border. 

His troubles date back to an incident in November 2014, three months before he left Australia to return home to New Zealand after a stint travelling. 

At the time he was in his 20s. Things were not going well for him. His mental health was not good and he broke up with his girlfriend. 

Court documents say he was also at that time considered a suspect for a “violent incident” in a car park in Perth, which led to an accusation of assault causing grievous bodily harm. 

The New Zealander left Perth to come home in February 2015. A warrant for his arrest was issued in June that year. 

In the same month, officers submitted a report to the Western Australian Police Force seeking approval for extradition from New Zealand. 

It was a year before the report was passed on to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) for Western Australia. 

The DPP did not issue an extradition request for another four years. Various explanations were given for the delay – the need for further investigations, legal issues about visas for criminals, workload pressures, the Covid-19 pandemic. 

New Zealand authorities finally received the extradition request in February 2022, seven years after the man first left Australia. 

Inquiries were made about his location and a New Zealand arrest warrant was finally issued in September 2022, when the man’s current partner was pregnant with their child. 

District Court Judge Warren Cathcart agreed to the extradition request in April 2023. 

This decision was overturned on appeal to the High Court, where Justice Rebecca Ellis ruled that it would be “oppressive” to send the man back to Australia. 

“[The man] has, in my view, very plainly ‘grown up’ in the eight years since his departure from Perth,” Justice Ellis said. 

“He is not the same person he was in November 2014.” 

“His growth during that period – manifested in his stable employment and his established family – would be materially disrupted, if not destroyed, by extradition.” 

The judge noted that the man’s partner and child were dependent on him. 

“Removing [him] from New Zealand, and depriving him of any opportunity to continue to support his new family for the foreseeable future, builds on the oppression here.” 

Justice Ellis’s judgment was handed down in June last year. 

Australian authorities have now successfully applied for leave to appeal her decision to the Court of Appeal. This has been granted. 

The question the appeal court will now decide is whether Justice Ellis was wrong in law when she concluded it would be “oppressive” to require the man to be extradited to Australia. 

No date has been set yet for the Court of Appeal hearing. 

Ric Stevens spent many years working for the former New Zealand Press Association news agency, including as a political reporter at Parliament, before holding senior positions at various daily newspapers. He joined NZME’s Open Justice team in 2022 and is based in Hawke’s Bay. His writing in the crime and justice sphere is informed by four years of front-line experience as a probation officer.