Being summonsed while out of the country

[argggh]

I had some good replies to a question recently and am now just posting a question a friend posed to me a couple of days ago about his situation and thought it was worth a go seeing if anyone had an oppinion.

He is currently out of the country and had a court date to appear as a whitness to a fight that happened about 8 months ago. He does not want to come back to the UK as he works abroad now but after not sending back a reply agreeing to go to court and contacting the proper authorities to state as much, they suggested that he may get summonsed to appear in court nearer the time for not agreeing to go to court without being summonsed.

I guess the question is, what would happen if he were to get summonsed while out of the country? Would he then have to come back here to appear as a whitness or do they need to physically hand him the summons in order for it to become effective?

Any advise would be useful, thanks

[Barmaid]

The best thing he can do is contact the CPS and inform them he is now living/working abroad. At present, the CPS do not know that he is doing so and thus service can be effected to his last known address whether he is there or not. If he informs them he is abroad, the CPS are very unlikely to summons him.

If they do and he does not appear, they could issue a witness warrant for him to be arrested, although this would only be acted upon in this country since I doubt very much they would go to the trouble and expense of arresting him when he is abroad. Witness warrants are relatively rare so as long as your friend lets the police/CPS know he is abroad, I suspect he will hear no more.