An Essex man has disappeared after being arrested for breaching his bail conditions, but re-bailed by the Magistrates' Court when an interpreter failed to attend.
Halwest Muradi, 24, was charged with rape, attempted rape and sexual assault after a woman was attacked in Colchester in November 2018.
He was arrested by Essex Police on 31st July 2019 and appeared at Colchester Magistrates' Court the same day. Despite the seriousness of the charges against him, the Bench was minded to release Muradi on conditional bail. One of the conditions was that Muradi was curfewed to his home address.
The next day, 1st August 2019, Muradi was arrested for breaching his curfew and he appeared before the court in custody the following day. Had the breach been admitted or proved, the Bench in this case would have almost certainly remanded Muradi in custody. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, there was no interpreter present so the court was unable to deal with the alleged breach.
Section 7 of the Bail Act 1976 requires that a defendant accused of breaching their bail conditions is put before the court within 24 hours of their time of arrest. As an interpreter was unavailable at court within the 24 hours time-frame, Muradi was re-bailed on the same conditions. He has not been seen since.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said: "In this case, an interpreter was required for the case to proceed on Friday, 2nd August.
"The information received by the court from the interpreting service was that an interpreter would not be available and, despite strenuous efforts by the court to find another interpreter, it was not possible to do so."
A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "We continually meet the demand for interpreters and complaints about any of the issues raised are extremely rare."
Thebigword, the company which provides court interpreter services on behalf of the Ministry of Justice, said it had booked an interpreter who was able to attend court by 13:00 BST but by that time CPS had withdrawn the breach of bail.
It has now been more than a month since Muradi was last seen. Local enquiries have drawn a blank so Essex Police is now widening its appeal for information.
Detective Chief Inspector Stuart Truss, said: "It's of the utmost importance that we find Halwest Muradi and speak to him about this alleged breach. Anyone who has seen him is asked to call us immediately.
"We believe he may have links to Kent and Swansea, but he could still be in the county and we would urge anyone with information about his whereabouts to reach out to us.
"You can call the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Directorate on 101 and quote Operation Oslo, email us on scd.appeals.essex@essex.pnn.police.uk, or speak to Crimestoppers 100% anonymously on 0800 555 111 or through their website."
Muradi, who is of Iranian descent, is described as 5ft 7ins tall, of medium build with short, dark hair.
No comments:
Post a Comment