User:Anarcho-authoritarian/sandbox

Arkadiusz Jóźwik was fatally punched at The Stow, Harlow (pictured in 2008)

On 27 August 2016, Arkadiusz "Arek" Jóźwik, a 40-year-old Polish immigrant in Harlow, Essex, was punched in the head by a 15-year-old male and died in hospital two days later. The attacker, who can not be named in the British media due to his age, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to three years' incarceration in a Young offender institution.

The attack happened two months after the Brexit referendum and figures in media and politics alleged that the attack was fuelled by xenophobia, which was found not to be the case in a court of law.

Attack

The attack took place at 11:30 pm at The Stow, a shopping precinct in Harlow. Jóźwik had two friends accompanying him and had been drinking vodka. The prosecution said that unprovoked, the defendant moved around behind Jóźwik to punch him. The defence said that Jóźwik and his friends were much older and larger than the defendant and his friends, and made racist remarks then "invited violence" from the youths. The judge accepted that the youth did not intend to kill Jóźwik, and that Jóźwik was intoxicated and had approached the youth.

Reaction

The Polish government sent two police officers to Harlow in the aftermath of the attack. EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said "We Europeans can never accept, never, Polish workers being harassed, beaten up or even murdered in the streets of Essex". Robert Halfon, MP for Harlow, considered Juncker's words to be unreflective of the town: "The vast majority of people are horrified as to the tragedies that have occurred. Harlow residents and the Polish community have rallied together. So what he has said, rather than help the situation has made things much worse".

Initial reports in August 2016 alleged that Jóźwik was killed for speaking Polish. James O'Brien, an LBC radio host, said that UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage was responsible for Jóźwik's death, saying "Does a politician like Farage talking about people speaking foreign on a train know that this leads inexorably to young people thinking they have the right to object to people speaking foreign in public?". Separately, the BBC interviewed a friend of Jóźwik, who said that Farage had "blood on his hands". After the trial concluded, Farage said that this interview had been damaging to him and his family. The BBC said that it aired interviews suggesting several motives, including anti-social behaviour.

There was considerably less media interest in the verdict of the trial, which found that there was no xenophobic motive to the attack on Jóźwik.

Legal proceedings

Six youths were arrested, and all but one were released because of insufficient evidence. He was charged with manslaughter and his trial began at Chelmsford Youth Court in January 2017. He was found guilty of the manslaughter of Jóźwik and was sentenced to three years in a Young Offenders' Institution. He was on bail at the time of the attack and had two prior convictions, for possession of a knuckle duster and for threatening behaviour.