Dad's torment at being booted out of US and dragged to UK over pub brawl in 1980

19 March 2023 , 17:23

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Retired construction worker Rory McGrath was extradited to the UK to face trial (Image: Rory McGrath/BBC)

A man was extradited to the UK to stand trial over a pub brawl which happened 41 years ago.

Rory McGrath was shocked when a dozen or so officers from the US Marshals Service turned up at his front door with their guns drawn.

The retired construction worker had not long returned home with the morning newspaper in his hand when the nightmare began.

His ordeal saw him sent back to the UK where he spent seven months in prison awaiting trial, the BBC reports.

The Irish-British national, from Leeds, was also separated from his wife and children who remained back at their home in New York.

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"It's been very stressful for everybody. It's like Ground Zero," he told the publication.

"I don't care to think about it, but it's always going to be there."

Mr McGrath met his wife Alice on what was supposed to be a short US holiday (Rory McGrath/BBC)

In March 1980, Mr McGrath had been out drinking with friends when he became involved in a fight between two groups of revellers.

Then 21, he claims he saw police arriving and fled to a nearby pub to avoid getting involved.

But investigators argued he was part of a group of men that assaulted an officer who was left with a broken nose.

Mr McGrath was one of five people charged, and he fled to Ireland to avoid prosecution.

He told how he believed he was being "set up" and falsely accused because of his Irish heritage.

Mr McGrath believed he was being "set up" and fled to Ireland (Rory McGrath/BBC)

Several years later, in 1986, Mr McGrath moved from Dublin to the US on what was supposed to be a few weeks' holiday.

But more than 10 years later, he was living there with his wife Alice and started the process of becoming a US citizen.

Mr McGrath thought his criminal charge had long been forgotten, after authorities made no effort to contact him.

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He had also travelled several times between the US and the UK without any problems.

It wasn't until 2021, when the US Marshals showed up at his door, that he ever thought about the incident again.

Mr McGrath in a 1980 booking photo

But the process to get McGrath extradited had actually begun years before in 2015, when a local neighbourhood police officer in West Yorkshire revisited the arrest warrant for McGrath and made the Crown Prosecution service aware of his case.

McGrath spent 15 months under house arrest in his home in New York before being flown to the UK in July 2022.

He spent seven months incarcerated at HMP Leeds awaiting trial, and his case was finally brought before a court in February this year.

A jury found him not guilty and he was acquitted, with the judge told jurors he didn't know why the case had been revived after more than four decades.

"We have worse things to deal with, if I can put it that way," he said.

McGrath's lawyer, Daniel Martin, agreed, adding he had "never seen such a flagrant waste of taxpayer resources as in this case".

McGrath is now back in the US and has been reunited with his family, but said the case has devastated his wife and sons.

Laura Sharman