Criminal Justice Act 1948

31 Jurisdiction and procedure in respect of certain indictable offences committed in foreign countries.

(1) Any British subject employed under His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom in the service of the Crown who commits, in a foreign country, when acting or purporting to act in the course of his employment, any offence which, if committed in England, would be punishable on indictment, shall be guilty of an offence of the same nature, and subject to the same punishment, as if the offence had been committed in England.

(2) A person may be proceeded against, indicted, tried and punished for an offence under this section in any county or place in England in which he is apprehended or is in custody as if the offence had been committed in that county or place; and the offence shall, for all purposes incidental to or consequential on the trial or punishment thereof, be deemed to have been committed in that county or place.

(3) Subsection (4) of section one of the [23 & 24 Geo. 5. c. 36.] Administration of Justice (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1933 (which continues the procedure by way of indictment preferred before a grand jury of the County of London and County of Middlesex in the case of indictments under the enactments specified in the First Schedule to that Act) shall cease to have effect; and subsection (2) of this section shall apply to any offence in respect of which a bill of indictment could, but for this subsection, have been so preferred as it applies to an offence under this section.