INTERVIEW So, Natalia, what ARE the ‘considerable talents’ that made a magistrate let you off for stealing from Harrods?
FOR a supposedly intelligent woman, the talented Natalia Sikorska can be pretty daft. Take her fury towards Harrods, where she was arrested for attempting to steal nigh-on £1,000 of designer gear. ‘They treated me like the worst criminalist (sic) ever,’ says this exquisitely attractive part-time glamour model. ‘I just had it (a Markus Lupfer jacket and a pair of Claudie Pierlot shoes) in my bag and a (Pinko) bag on my arm. There was also a knife.’
A knife? ‘I took a knife from the restaurant to untag some of the stuff. I’m not going to lie, I might have stolen it if they hadn’t caught me before leaving Harrods, but I didn’t leave the building. They just grabbed me going to the toilet. They caught me completely by surprise and counted it as stealing. I think that’s unfair.’
That is exactly the word that sprang to many minds last week when it emerged that Westminster magistrate Grant McCrostie had let Natalia off with little more than a slap on the wrist, owing, he said, to her ‘considerable talents’.
‘Ah, Mr Grant,’ she sighs. ‘I think he is really smart not to judge people because of the mistakes they’ve made.’ But isn’t that a magistrate’s job, I ask?
She shoots me a furious look. ‘Your country is very restrictive. English people like rules, yes? Some criticise me mainly because they’re angry they cannot afford this . . .’ She gestures to her thigh- skimming AllSaints frock. (Paid for, she assures me.)
Natalia, 28, who arrived in London from her native Poland five years ago, clasps her hand to her chest (God-given and definitely not paid for, she maintains.) ‘I believe Mr Grant not only used the rules of law but he also used empathy. I will remember what he said about my talents for ever. I will never forget it.’
Neither will many of us. True, Natalia is studying business management and economics at the University of Westminster, but who couldn’t help but wonder whether she would have received such ‘empathy’ in sentencing — a conditional discharge for 12 months — had she looked like the back end of a bus? Natalia is more your high-end sports car with purring Polish accent and polished curves.
She’s also very fortunate — due to the high value of items stolen, the sentencing guidelines recommend judges or magistrates issue a fine. Instead, she will have no further punishment provided she doesn’t reoffend within 12 months.
Luckily for Natalia, magistrates can deal with each case as they see fit.
‘I am a smart person, too. I am good at maths so I am getting on with my economics and business,’ Natalia insists. ‘I also believe I am creative.’
SHE
certainly is. For her explanation for what happened that day is truly baffling. I ask what possessed a young woman with such a ‘potentially bright future’ (the magistrate’s words) to try to pilfer nearly £1,000 worth of goods from the Knightsbridge store.
‘I guess it’s because there’s so much pressure from society to look good,’ she says. ‘Especially for me, as a model, because I have to show myself in the best possible light.’ Perhaps not the most convincing defence.
She tries again. ‘This is a horror story for me. I don’t know what was going on. I had so much stress. I call this cultural shock as I had been on a student exchange at a college in the U.S. since January.
‘After being in America I really changed. I realised from the way I talk to my friends I was a different person. So basically cultural shock for me was that I was a new person.’ She pouts prettily and looks at me doe-eyed.
‘It’s really hard for me to explain, but the day before going to Harrods I had this bike accident. I’ll show you.’
She rolls up the sleeve of her paid-for dress to show, well, nothing much but a patch of paler skin where she grazed her elbow.
‘Thank God I didn’t hit my head, although I don’t know why but I had these shaking symptoms and I was unaware for 15 minutes. Like I can’t explain it. I don’t know where I am. I’m in shock.’
Her eyes widen as she warms to her theme.
‘There were three people who took care of me. They wanted to take me to the hospital but I was like, “No, I want to go home, I’m fine”.’
Home, she says, is in Chelsea (not paid for). ‘I stay with a family friend. He’s like 50 right now. He’s agreed for me to stay in the spare room. His name is Rupert. He works in property. I am staying there for free, basically. I’m probably not going to stay for ever.’
There are nuggets of sense in her bizarre narrative, however. Natalia concedes that she has long been blessed with attention from men, as well as a huge imagination.
As a child growing up in the small town of Radziejow, Poland, where her parents ran a bar, she was enthralled by fairytales and the dream of a happy-ever-after.
‘ My parents are peaceful people but I had these dreams. I wanted to be an actress. I wanted to travel. They were very religious — very restrictive. We Polish people are quite religious. I am still a Christian and still really proud of my religion,’ she says, before the wheels come off again.
‘That’s why I really appreciated it when I went to America, because there the church industry works differently to England. You don’t have to pay to go to church in America.’
HANG
on Natalia. Rewind. You pay to go church in England? ‘ Sometimes if you want to go to religious places you have to pay for entry,’ she says. A guided tour of St Paul’s perhaps?
So she doesn’t go to church over here then? ‘Yeah, maybe. I don’t want to lie.’ Really?
We venture back to that restrictive upbringing in Poland, and it starts to feel like one of her fairytales. ‘I ran away at 15 because I wanted to live a different life. Then I started to study psychology at Warsaw University. I found it super, super interesting.
‘However, after two years of studying I realised I wanted to do something different in my life, firstly because I might struggle to find a job because there are so many psychologists
in Poland, and secondly because it was just not my thing. So, I decided to move to England.’
Between 15 and 18, she says she worked in theatre, where she got all the nice roles ‘because she was attractive’. In England she worked as a nanny, then a receptionist, before becoming a luxury sales associate in fashion, as her CV states.
I guess this required the sort of considerable talent that impressed her ‘Mr Grant’. What did the job entail? ‘Basically, I had to be a hostess and wait for the customers. I made them feel welcome and gave advice as to fashion trends.
‘You have to understand what they need from you. I was booked by an agency, often changing from one brand to another. For instance, I worked in Sloane Square at Yves Saint Laurent. On one floor I worked with bags and shoes, and clothing lines on the other floor.’
So, by luxury sales associate she means shop assistant? ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I also worked for a modelling agency doing portrait projects, art projects, fashion projects and some glamour — but in good taste.’
Of course. Any boyfriends? ‘There was one man. He was working in a bank. It was good but unfortunately it finished. I don’t have too many love stories in the UK, maybe because I’m too busy.’
Understandably so, for as well as her luxury sales and modelling work, Natalia began her studies at the University of Westminster in September 2015. Six months ago she gave up her agency work to be an exchange student at Lycoming College, Pennsylvania.
‘I did some modelling too, but I didn’t have a work visa so I was just modelling for free really,’ she says.
She travelled widely, too. New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Miami — you name it, Natalia was there. So much so, it’s a small wonder she didn’t add jetlag to her rather long list of mitigating circumstances. How on earth did she fund this travelling? After all, she was in California for more than a month. Actually, let’s scrub that. Questioning Natalia too closely is akin to following Alice in Wonderland down the rabbit hole. She popped back up in the UK six days before deciding to cheer herself up with a shopping spree in Harrods. ‘I had £1,500 in my savings account and £300 in my normal account. I don’t know what happened to me. I just lost my control,’ she says. It’s crazy really because the bag was not an expensive one. ‘ It was £ 200 or something. Actually, I was considering buying it. I saw this gentleman in the lift, but to be honest I didn’t know he worked for Harrods. I was thinking: “He might be some crazy guy, I don’t know.” It was the way he was looking at me. Then they just grabbed me on the ground floor.’
NATALIA’S eyes widen in indignation. ‘I tried to talk to them but they wouldn’t talk to me. They just took me to this small room with a glass wall and checked all my stuff from my bag. They took everything, even my passport.
‘They just told me: “You are arrested.” Her eyes are so wide now I’m afraid they’re going to pop.
‘I had good experiences in Harrods all my life. Oh my God, I would go there to buy perfume and gifts for my family at Christmas. I even have membership there. Now I will never go there again. It was such a trauma.’
Natalia was taken to Victoria Police Station for questioning. ‘I didn’t want to confess because I didn’t believe they could accuse me of stealing as I didn’t leave the building. When they charged me, oh my God, I didn’t have any emotions for days. I was in shock. It was horrible because I kept everything to myself. I didn’t say a word to my family or anyone because I was ashamed. I was like a robot.’
Then come the tears — almost. She sniffs prettily and blinks them back. God forbid the mascara should run. ‘This is crazy,’ she says. ‘Now I cry all the time. I am so emotional but until now, I don’t know, maybe it was because of the stress, I am not crying.’
On the day of her appearance in court, a dry-eyed Natalia changed her plea to guilty. It is one of the reasons that Mr McCrostie gave for his leniency.
‘My case was very quick,’ Natalia says. ‘I stood on the other side of the glass from Mr Grant. He was middle-aged. He is not bad-looking but he was very serious. He was more like a father when he said I was an intelligent, promising person and that I am smart so in this case he would make a conditional sentence. I was happy.
‘I was so scared to be honest with you, because if I’d had [a criminal conviction] I couldn’t go to the States. I want to live in America — California or New York. That is my big dream. I am a big dreamer with lots of plans so I am very grateful to Mr Grant.’
In truth, she’d be daft not to be.