A homesick Polish man who firebombed Manchester Town Hall in an attempt to be kicked out of Britain has been ordered by a judge to STAY in the UK for another two years – at a cost to the taxpayer of up to £75,000.
Jobless Maciej Maciejewski, 34, was so fed up of living in England and being broke, he travelled 250 miles from digs in London and hurled a lit Molotov cocktail through the town’s halls doors.
Mercifully the fire was quickly extinguished by a porter, but Maciejewski’s hopes of being deported back to his beloved homeland went up in smoke due to EU laws on ‘free movement’.
Due to Poland being in the European Union he cannot be legally kicked out of the UK and he can only go back to Poland under his own steam and expense.
At Manchester Crown Court, Maciejewski’s misery went on as a judge jailed for him 24 months meaning he will have remain in Britain until 2016 unless he is released earlier for good behaviour.
The ruling is expected to bring misery to the taxpayer as the public cost of a prison place in the UK is thought to be £37,500 a year.
Judge Andrew Blake told Maciejewski: “There is an old saying – if you play with fire, you are going to get burnt. The reason why it is regarded as serious is because the consequences can’t be predicted.
”Your motivation you say, and I have no reason to doubt this, is to get your fare back to Poland paid for. Well, this strategy was never going to work. That’s not what happens. We are a member of the EU.
“If you commit criminal offences in this country just as if you had committed criminal offences as you have in the past in Poland, you go to prison. The consequences could have been serious.
“There can be no doubt about it that you carefully planned this expedition to Manchester. It is inevitable that a prison sentence must follow.”
Earlier the court heard how Maciejewski concocted his hair-brained plan to attack Manchester’s 146-year-old Town Hall because he was penniless and it would be a ‘ticket back to Poland’.
He travelled from London to the city with the sole intention of damaging the landmark – eschewing the capital because he liked London and ‘didn’t want to do anything there’.
On arrival in Manchester at around midday on March 31, Maciewjewski bought petrol, poured it into an empty Budweiser bottle he had found in a bin, and walked towards the Town Hall which was backed with civil servants and hundreds of delegates attending a conference.
In front of dozens of bystanders and office workers enjoying their lunch, he ripped part of his t-shirt to use as a fuse before he lit the cocktail and hurled it into the empty entrance of the building. The bottle shattered when it hit the wooden frame of the door and burst into flames.
A porter was alerted to the scene when workers inside the building saw flames and complained of the smell of smoke. It was soon extinguished but not before causing £250 worth of damage to the aged wooden doors of the building.
Maciejewski made no attempt to escape and when he was arrested at the scene he told police: “I just wanted to go back to Poland.”
Prosecutor Andrew Mackintosh said Maciejewski, who has lived in England since 2008, had lost his travel documentation so wasn’t eligible for work in this country, which had left him broke.
He added: ”In interview he stated that he had come from Poland and had been living in London and that he had lost his documentation and had no means of getting work in this country and that he wanted to return to Poland.
“He had sought the help of the Polish Embassy but was not assisted. He decided to travel from London where he had been living rough to commit this offence in the hope he would be sent back. He wanted to target a prominent building in Manchester.
“Asked why he chose Manchester he said he liked London and didn’t want to do anything there. He made his way to the Town Hall and said he knew it was a building where there were staff who ‘set the laws’. He said that he threw the bottle at the main door having put a piece of his t-shirt into the head of the bottle as a fuse.
“He had no intention of hurting anybody. He said what he did was a ticket back to Poland.”
Maciejewski, who had 15 previous convictions including one in Poland for assaulting a public official, asked through his barrister if any prison sentence could be served in his native country.
His counsel Max Saffman acknowledged his client had ‘failed to acknowledge the particular danger’ of hurling a lit bottle of petrol at a building full of people – but reiterated that it had caused only minor damage.
He said: “There is a perverse logic in his actions. His thinking is perhaps he intended to commit an act of criminal damage but used fire for that. For no sooner had it started it was put out by an eagle-eyed security guard. It was £250 worth of damage – not a considerable amount. He didn’t wish for anybody to be hurt. He just wished to be returned to Poland as soon as possible.”
Maciejewski was not ordered to pay any compensation for the damage caused.
Story via Cavendish Press.
Image courtesy of Pmecologic, with thanks.
