Polanski to give video evidence

11 April 2012

Roman Polanski will be allowed to give evidence via video link from the safety of Paris for a libel action he is bringing against a magazine in the British courts.

It means the fugitive film director, wanted in the United States since 1977 for having sex with a 13-year-old girl, will not have to travel here and face arrest and extradition to America.

The ruling came yesterday from the Law Lords, who said his unwillingness to come to Britain should not deny him access to justice.

Polanski, 71, fled to his home in France in 1977 after pleading guilty to the sex offence and spending 42 days in a California jail while tests were carried out. He has yet to be sentenced, but fears he would receive a substantial prison term if he ever returned to the U.S.

He cannot be extradited under French law, but would face arrest in Britain. Polanski has issued libel proceedings against CondÈ Nast, publishers of Vanity Fair, over a July 2002 article. It alleged that 35 years ago he seduced a 'Swedish beauty' in Elaine's restaurant in New York just after his wife, actress Sharon Tate, had been murdered by the Charles Manson gang. In fact, he was at Elaine's on his return journey to London after his wife's burial.

After issuing his libel writ, he sought a High Court order allowing him to give evidence via a video conferencing link from France.

Granting it, Mr Justice Eady said although the reason underlying the application was unattractive, it did not justify depriving Polanski of the chance to have his case heard.

That decision was overturned by the Court of Appeal, but restored yesterday by the Lords in a 3-2 majority ruling.

Lord Nicholls said: 'Despite his fugitive status, a fugitive from justice is entitled to invoke the assistance of the court and its procedures in protection of his civil rights.'

If a fugitive was entitled to bring proceedings in this country, 'there can be little rhyme or reason in withholding from him a procedural facility flowing from a modern technological development which is now readily available to all litigants'.

The fact that Polanski was guilty of a serious crime and feared extradition did not take the case outside the general rule. Lord Hope said Polanski had an undoubted constitutional right, as a citizen of France, not to be extradited.

'He is not trying to hide from anybody. It is incorrect to say his sole aim in seeking this order is to avoid being extradited.'

To refuse the order would not assist the normal processes of the law, but merely deny Polanski access to justice.

Baroness Hale said there was a strong public interest in allowing a claim to be properly litigated. Against that, there was a strong interest in not assisting a fugitive to escape his just deserts. But Polanski would escape those deserts whether or not the order was made, because he would stay outside the reach of the U.S. authorities.

'New technology such as video conferencing is not a revolutionary departure from the norm to be kept strictly in check, but simply another tool for securing effective access to justice for everyone,' she added.

Disagreeing, Lord Slynn said the video link facility should be refused where the sole reason for asking for it was to escape a criminal conviction or sentence.

Besides, Polanski could sue in France, where Vanity Fair was also published.

Lord Carswell said it would be 'quite wrong' to allow him to give his evidence in a special way to avoid the consequences of his criminal act. If Polanski refused to come here to be cross --examined, his written witness statement should be excluded from use as evidence, he said.

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