Rapist able to flee UK on Eurostar despite police seizing passport
A CONCERT pianist who raped a student was able to flee abroad after his arrest because EU freedom of movement rules allowed him to board the Eurostar without a passport, a court has heard.
Jacek Serafin, 30, who studied piano performance at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, had his passport confiscated by police after he was arrested for the sexual assault of his 22-year old victim, whose drink had been spiked.
But on April 26, days before he was due to face a retrial for rape, Serafin used an ID card to board a Eurostar train bound for France and vanished.
A Ministry of Justice spokesman last night said the police should have confiscated Serafin’s identity documents as well as his passport.
It is thought he is now in his native Poland but police have not been able to make contact with him.
Serafin, a former graduate of Music Academy in Kraków, was yesterday, jailed for 14 years in his absence, having been found guilty of rape and assault by penetration.
Judge Anthony Cross QC, said at Manchester Crown Court: “Following his failure to attend [the first day of the trial], police made inquiries and discovered that a person holding [his] identity left for France by Eurostar.’’
The judge called for an inquiry at the college, and condemned staff for failing to intervene as his unconscious victim was subjected to a horrific ordeal.
Serafin was spotted by a guard forcing himself on his victim as she lay helpless on the floor but Serafin urged him not to call the police. Afterwards, he was seen dressing the woman then carrying her “like a dead weight” to a taxi before he took her back to his flat.
Mr Cross said: “In my judgment there ought to be an inquiry by the college into the staff supervising events such as these. The defendant was observed by witnesses acting strangely. He isolated his target and waited for her outside a lavatory and when they were in a practice room she was unconscious and she was brutally raped. I am satisfied a drug was used by the defendant to incapacitate the victim.
“By 2am, he was disturbed by a security guard and it was quite plain that he feared discovery and asked the guard not to report the matter to the police. Sadly, he did not. That remark should have triggered alarm and should have caused him to take action. For what he saw was a young woman unconscious. Not asleep – unconscious.”