UK paedophile facing 42 sexual assault charges loses appeal in Cape court
|Published
British helicopter pilot and IT consultant Lee Tucker arriving at court. British helicopter pilot and IT consultant Lee Tucker arriving at court.
Cape Town - British helicopter pilot and IT consultant wanted in the UK for a raft of child sex charges ran out of legal options this week when he lost his Western Cape High Court extradition appeal.
The only thing now preventing the transfer of Welshman Lee Tucker from Pollsmoor to a British jail is the minister of justice and correctional services not approving his extradition order handed down by a Cape Town magistrate in November 2017.
Before the order can be presented to the minister, however, the high court has ordered that Tucker be allowed to place evidence before the magistrate’s court of how UK law discriminates against gay men in relation to the charges he faces. He can also present evidence of the alleged “exaggerated” media coverage he has received.
“Such evidence might have a bearing on the minister’s decision,” the high court judgment noted.
Tucker has 15 days to present his evidence and the director of public prosecutions has 15 days to respond.
Tucker, 55, has been fighting extradition since his March 2016 arrest.
He believes he has been falsely accused and will not get a fair trial in the UK, where he faces 42 charges of sexual assault of boys under the age of 16. Most of the charges are related to non-consensual anal or oral sex with under-age boys, which constitutes rape under current South African law.
Tucker was dubbed in his home country as one of the UK’s most wanted fugitives after he fled the country in early 2000 while awaiting sentencing in a Bristol court on child sex charges.
A few years later, he popped up in Cape Town, bought a house in Green Point and trained as a helicopter pilot, with three pending UK arrest warrants.