In March, Francis Paul Cullen was sentenced to 15 years in prison for a series of sexual assaults on children, which he had committed over a period of more than three decades while serving as a priest in Nottingham and Derbyshire.

He pleaded guilty to a total of 21 charges. His victims were both boys and girls,  aged between six and 16. 

The judge sentencing him said these children’s whole lives had been blighted by this “cunning, devious, arrogant” man. 

Cullen’s crimes first came to light in 1991. He fled to Tenerife.

Last year, after 22 years on the run, he was extradited from Spain on an arrest warrant.

Under the system of extradition that existed before the European Arrest Warrant, Cullen’s 22 years on the run would have rendered him immune from prosecution by the Spanish authorities, and barred his extradition back to the UK to face justice.

It is thanks to the arrest warrant that Cullen is behind bars at last. That is the power of the European Arrest Warrant.

There appears to be a lot of hysteria, simply because it has the word European in its title.

The fact is this is a crucial tool for tackling crime, protecting the public and bringing criminals to justice.

We must, of course, protect our citizens from wrongful arrest and lengthy detention, and ensure that people cannot be extradited for conduct in the UK which is not against the law here.

But, most importantly, it means that those suspected of serious crime will not simply be able to leg it over the Channel.

Make no mistake,  this is a vital tool to fight crime.