Ex-business chief Ian Norris loses US extradition appeal

Ailing former industry boss Ian Norris today failed to avoid extradition to the US where he faces charges of obstructing justice.

Norris, the retired chief executive of Morgan Crucible, won a House of Lords ruling in 2008 that blocked his removal to the US on price-fixing charges.

The US was successful in the lower courts in pursuing him on charges of obstructing justice but Norris appealed against the rulings in the new Supreme Court. He argued that extradition would damage his and his wife's mental and physical health.

The Supreme Court today unanimously dismissed his appeal.

Lord Phillips, the court's president, said: "One has to consider the effect on the public interest in the prevention of crime if any defendant with family ties and dependencies such as those that bind Mr Norris and his wife was thereby rendered immune from extradition.

"The answer is that the public interest would be seriously damaged.

"It is for this reason that only the gravest effects of interference with family life will be capable of rendering extradition disproportionate to the public interest that it serves."

Jonathan Sumption QC, for Norris, argued that it would not serve the interests of preventing crime to extradite "a sick, retired man of 66 whose wife suffers from a severe depressive episode".

He said the "main stuffing" of the case was knocked out by the House of Lords ruling and that the effect of extradition would be a "disproportionate interference" with the right to a private and family life for Norris and his wife, 65-year-old Sheila, under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The court also heard that Norris was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000 and, although it is in remission, relies on his wife for daily nursing.

Mr Sumption said Norris was never told about the evidence against him, making it difficult to assess the strength of the charges, which he has always denied.