Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Fugitive ordered to serve sentence in Portuguese jail
Dad seeks permission to appeal judge’s ruling
A fugitive who caused the death of a man outside a nightclub has been ordered to return to Portugal to serve a seven-year prison sentence.
Painter and decorator John Hodgson, from Herne Bay, was on a trip to Albufeira in 2011 when he struck Ricardo Teixeira outside a late-night bar, causing him to fall down steps and hit his head.
Mr Teixeira, who was under the influence of drink and drugs, died a week later of a traumatic brain injury. Hodgson, who has never returned to Portugal, was convicted at a trial he did not attend in 2016 and sentenced to seven years in jail.
But following a hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on February 12, District Judge Gareth Branston decided last Monday to extradite the 29-yearold.
However, Hodgson - who fears he could be killed if he returns to Portugal - has applied for permission to appeal the decision. His fiancée, Sian Lovegrove, said: “We’re currently appealing for him to stay here - he doesn’t deserve to go over there.” A spokesman for the Crown Prosecution said Hodgson’s application will be considered at the Appeal Court.
He added: “No hearing date is listed as the permission decision will be made initially by a single Judge based on the papers.” Hodgson was charged with what the Portuguese courts called “compound grievous bodily harm”, an offence that would be considered manslaughter in the UK.
Mr Teixera fell into a coma and later had his life-support machine switched off; while Hodgson returned home four days after the incident.
He has been on remand at High Down prison in Sutton since being arrested in a dawn raid by National Crime Agency officers executing a European Arrest Warrant, on November 28.
At the hearing last month, prosecutor Catherine Brown said: “Without anything preceding it, outside the bar [in the Algarve], the defendant elbowed [Mr Teixera] to the side of the head where he fell down steps and hit his head.
“The defendant then returned inside the nightclub and did not notify anyone what had happened.”
Hodgson was asked why he chose not to return to Portugal for his trial in October 2016 or to serve his sentence. Giving evidence, he said: “I was scared for my safety. “I heard from my nephew’s dad that the family was part of a gang, or mafia, as he said.” Hodgson also said he saw photographs of a demonstration by supporters of Mr Teixeira in Portugal in 2012, in which the address of his parents’ Whitstable home was publicised. A placard bearing his picture also branded him an “English assassin”.
“I don’t know the people they know. If they are involved in a violent background, I’d be worried about prison over there.” Hodgson claimed he had received a wad of papers stating his sentence in Portuguese, but discarded it as he was unable to understand it.
He insisted the first he heard of his possible extradition was during the raid of his house four months ago.
Hodgson also said his mental health has deteriorated in recent years, resulting in him taking large amounts of medication for anxiety and depression. But Ms Brown argued: “There is no medication he is currently receiving that couldn’t be given to him in Portugal. If he is extradited, that might lead to a decline in his mental health however the Portuguese authorities would be able to treat that.”