People might think I had taken leave of my senses
Judge says that he cannot risk fugitive fraudster fleeing to other jurisdiction as he refuses her bail
A NOTORIOUS fraudster who fled to Ireland after absconding from her trial in London will remain in custody here while her extradition case moves through the courts.
Farah Damji, who is the daughter of a millionaire tycoon, was convicted and sentenced for harassment crimes in the UK in her absence.
Born in Uganda, the convicted con woman, who also goes under the name Farah Dan, has a long criminal career stretching back to the early 1990s. At that time, she ran an art gallery in New York and East Hampton.
The 53-year-old, whose father was South African-born millionaire property tycoon Amir Damji, applied for bail in Ireland earlier this week while awaiting the hearing of extradition proceedings brought against her by the UK.
However, High Court judge Tony Hunt said yesterday morning that if he were to ignore Damji’s high risk of absconding, ‘the casual observer might think I had taken leave of my senses’.
Damji fled to Ireland last February during her trial, in which she was convicted in her absence at Southwark Crown Court of twice breaching a restraining order, in April and
‘Same situation may be faced again’
June 2018. Her conviction related to her continued harassment of a police officer in the UK. She was also jailed for five years in 2016 for stalking a church warden after meeting him on a dating site.
Damji presented herself here as an Icelandic national and was living at Bachelor’s Walk in Dublin when she was apprehended.
Judge Hunt, delivering his judgment refusing bail yesterday, said Damji was at ‘high risk’ of absconding if granted bail here.
In supplemental submissions yesterday, the applicant’s barrister, Leo Mulrooney BL, told Judge Hunt that medical documents and emails had been supplied to the court corroborating Damji’s previous claim that she was not intending to ‘lay low in Ireland forever’.
Mr Mulrooney said Damji was attempting to regularise her position in Ireland and that she had to make arrangements before consenting to her arrest here.
Samples of Damji’s artwork were also handed in to court as proof she had been working as an artist to supplement living here in Ireland, corroborating what she had said at a previous hearing, where she denied having access to her deceased father’s wealth.
Judge Hunt said that in the case of a European Arrest Warrant issued in relation to a conviction in absence in a foreign jurisdiction, there was no presumption of bail being granted by the domestic jurisdiction. ‘In any realistic view, the Minister [for Justice] has established a substantial risk of absconding rooted in real evidence and the previous behaviour [of Damji],’ said Judge Hunt.
He added that Damji had left the UK midway through a trial that was concluded in her absence, a ‘highly relevant’ fact that he said was ‘intimately connected with the application for surrender’.
The judge said that because she had absconded from the authority seeking her and from the same trial that convicted Damji, it ‘gives rise to a very high probability that the same situation may be faced again’.
Judge Hunt said ‘concerns had not been allayed’ and noted that Damji had access and recourse to use false documents and had also used aliases. ‘It’s not a concern, it’s a fact. It’s a recent actuality and it feeds heavily into the risk assessment in this case,’ he said.
The judge acknowledged matters raised by Damji’s counsel, Mr Mulrooney, regarding a 2019 diagnosis that she was suffering from complex post-traumatic stress disorder, but concluded that in the case of Damji, it was not, on its own, enough of a factor to grant or refuse bail.
Regarding a concern raised over prison conditions in the UK, Judge Hunt said that all prison systems have a range of physical and mental health concerns. ‘Of course, custody is stressful across the board, except for those who seem to welcome it, always being in and out of custody,’ said the judge, who did acknowledge that visiting restrictions were in place.
Judge Hunt said Damji’s litigation against the UK authorities was unlikely to conclude as long as she was ‘in effect, a fugitive’ from the same authorities.
The judge also took into consideration the ‘very considered manner’ in which Damji left the UK and described it as taking ‘thought and planning’, with the use of false documents. Damji had a false UK driver’s licence when arrested in Ireland and had used aliases when sourcing accommodation
‘It is at odds, somewhat, with the condition [complex PTSD] described in the medical report,’ said the judge.
He added that he did not know the source of the money Damji travelled to Ireland with and said that her financial situation was ‘opaque’ regarding any bond or independent surety offered.
‘Nothing goes close to satisfying the substantial risk of absconding; nothing goes close to allay those fears and concerns, and in those circumstances the refusal of bail is inevitable,’ said the judge.
The judge asked Mr Mulrooney if his client had made an asylum application, as she had told the court she had been in contact with the Irish Refugee Council, but was told no. ‘It seems unusual, to be from the UK and apply, but maybe it is not as outlandish as it may have once been,’ said the judge.
Damji will appear in the court again on October 21 for her extradition hearing.
At a previous hearing, Detective Garda Eoin Kane said Damji was facing 27 months in jail in the UK for the restraining order breaches, and that when she was arrested by gardaí in Dublin last month, she gave the false, Icelandic name ‘Anna Margaret Vignisdottir’.
‘Nothing goes close to allaying fears’