RAPIST SUSPECT CAUGHT NEAR A SCHOOL
Polish fugitive got into UK even though he’d served prison term
A MAN suspected of two rapes fled from Poland to Britain and was caught living near a primary school.
Tattooed fugitive Lukasz Cholomek was able to enter the UK despite serving jail time for a sex attack back home.
He was also suspected of two further offences in Poland – and police fear he also inflicted beatings on women here.
The case will raise fresh doubts over Tory Home Secretary Priti Patel’s commitment to keep foreign offenders out of the country.
In January – the month Cholomek was captured – she vowed to “stop at nothing” to halt them roaming here unchecked.
Polish police said his jail term was for an offence “similar” to the two rapes he is suspected of.
He moved to the UK some time after the last suspected attack, in 2017. He was living close to West Thornton Primary School in Croydon, South London, when finally tracked down and will now be kicked out of Britain. His alleged crimes were outlined in 2020 as part of a BBC Crimewatch appeal by Polish cops.
They say he is accused of inflicting sustained mental and physical abuse on his alleged victim over a six-month period and raping her twice, pinning her down and covering her mouth.
The alleged victim told police Cholomek threatened to kill her and kicked her all over her body during the suspected attacks in Katowice, 300 miles south of the capital Warsaw. He featured in the TV appeal alongside four other wanted men from Eastern Europe.
EXTRADITION
At the time, Det Sgt Peter Rance, from the National Extradition Unit, said: “These men must not be approached.”
Cholomek, who is in his mid-30s, is on remand in Wandsworth jail pending his extradition – which was rubberstamped by Westminster magistrates. Foreign criminals sentenced to more than a year in prison are banned from entering the UK as part of the postBrexit points-based immigration system implemented in January 2021.
Ms Patel has said murderers and rapists from overseas “should not be staying in our country”.
Last month, a fugitive who went on the run after a double murder in Poland was jailed for killing an ex-cop here.
Sylwester Krajewski fled after being released on licence for five days, having served half of a 25-year sentence for murdering a husband and wife in 1992.
Last year he killed former police officer Clive Porter, 63, in Aylesbury, Bucks.
Krajewski, 50, was sentenced to life in prison last month.
In another case, a suspected killer from Afghanistan managed to slip into Britain under a false name.
Woman was pinned down, kicked all over her body and he threatened to kill her... POLISH COPS ON ALLEGATIONS AGAINST THE RAPE SUSPECT