Polish Man Attacked in Scotland

It was the middle of the night on Saturday, 11 July, when Jarosław Janeczek was attacked on his way home on Alexander Drive in Aberdeen, Scotland. The attackers, two men estimated to be in their 20s, have yet to be found.

Local police believe that the attack, which was described as an attempted murder by Detective Inspector Cammy Preston, was racially motivated. “This was a brutal, apparently unprovoked and sustained attack with what we believe to be a racist element,” DI Preston told the press. “Racially motivated attacks like this are abhorrent to the vast majority of people in the Northeast and are relatively rare. No one deserves to be the victim of this kind of vicious assault.”

DI Preston told the Aberdeen Press and Journal today that there is no “racial divide” in the Aberdeen community between Poles and locals. “Generally speaking most of the people in Tillydrone [the area of Aberdeen where the attack took place] will accept people of other cultures into the community – that can be said for Aberdeen as a whole.”

However, the attack follows another racially motivated assault that took place in the area the week before. The Press and Journal also reported that locals they spoke to in the Tillydrone area “expressed openly racist views about the Polish community in Tillydrone”.

The two men, who were seen with two pit bull-type dogs that were not involved in the attack, are still being sought by police. Their beating left the victim with head and internal injuries.

Mr. Janeczek, who works as a cleaner in Aberdeen, was descibed as “a quiet man who kept himself to himself and who came to this country to work,” by DI Preston. The 39-year-old Pole is still in serious but stable condition at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.