You do not "have a case to answer" until you are charged with an offence. Prior to that you are being questioned, not judged, and of course have the right to say nothing under questioning as you do not "have a case to answer" at that point. Until all parties have been questioned and a decision made to prosecute then there is no case to answer. It is simply an allegation under investigation - nobody who is under investigation has a case to answer, it is up to the police to gather evidence to submit to the prosecuting body to determine whether there is a case to answer. Until the point when someone says "You are formally charged with the offence of......." then there is no case to answer. That's a fundamental legal principle.

Lucky him

You obviously didn't notice that I was referring not directly to my own argument, but to the 30 September 2011 report to the Home Secretary by a Committee chaired by the Rt Hon Sir Scott Baker which reviewed the United Kingdom's extradition arrangements, and made those findings.

To me, they seem rational and compelling. But if you want to know what kind of nonsense is being argued, why don't you drop a line to Sir Scott Baker? I'm sure he'd be bowled over by your insight.

Curiously Call me Dave seems to have perhaps become exasperated by the EAW, as he indicated during a trade visit to Brazil last week (the perfect forum, obviously) that the government intends to exercise its opt-out powers to opt out of all of the police and criminal justice measures adopted under the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht - including therefore the EAW - "before the end of the year".

The government has until the end of May 2014 to notify the European Commission of any decision to opt out.

But what a mess! For starters, any opt-out can relate only to measures established before the Treaty of Lisbon came into force in 2009, so there's a splendid recipe for confusion.

Did I miss the Consultation which will obviously have been assiduously carried out on such fundamental measures?

If we opt out of EAW, how would we get future naughty teachers back from France? Or is it one of these "one way" opt outs?

I'm assuming we'd be back to old-style extraditions, like we have with many non-EU countries now.