James Gray

The Polish media are reporting that the Polish embassy has sent an official letter to Dominic Mohan, editor of The Sun, to complain about an article in Saturday’s paper headlined ‘No. of Eastern Europeans in UK jails goes up by 850%‘.

I’ve confirmed this with Robert Szaniawski, the author of the letter and spokesperson for the Embassy, who explained that the figures in the report were used selectively and portrayed Poles living in the UK as a ‘threat’.

The article, by reporter Rhodri Phillips, said:

THE number of Eastern Europeans caged in our jails annually jumped 850 PER CENT in five years, The Sun can reveal.
And one in ten foreigners jailed every year is Polish, according to shock figures.

Just 99 Poles were banged up in England and Wales in 2004. But there were 1,240 Polish lags in 2009, the last year figures were available – a staggering leap of 1,153 per cent.

Szaniawski says these figures, obtained through a freedom of information request, are quite correct. What the article fails to mention, however, is that there are around ten times the number of Poles living in Britain now than in 2004, when Poland acceded to the European Union. So you’d expect that number of  ‘lags’ to increase proportionately.

But Phillips probably knew that, didn’t he?