As an old Polish proverb says, no job is beneath you. You’re in great luck if you do what you like and get paid for it. Not all emigrants work beneath their qualifications and not all of them equate working with constant stress. The women I interviewed simply assumed: “If I have what men want and if they are ready to pay for it, then why shouldn’t I benefit from it?” Business is business…

Many of us who visit Poland for the holidays have probably been asked questions like: How are you doing? How much do you earn? Many times – especially men – ask: “Is it true that Polish women are easy abroad?” Probably not all of them are easy, but I decided to talk with those who are, and – what is more – they are not ashamed of it, as they have turned it into a tidy profit.

ANNA SHOWS WHAT’S UNDERNEATH HER CLOTHES

My first interviewee is a 23 year old. She does what has recently become very popular. Sex shows on the internet for money. Needless to say, Anna is not her real name. Although I am not looking for the services she offers, I still need to pay for the chat. Time is money, and Anna does not want to waste time.

“So why do you do it?”
“Why not? Would you rather I worked 12 hour shifts in factories like most of my friends? I have always liked showing off my body. I liked bragging about it, ’cause I can do it as long as I’m young, and when I’m old no one will want to look at me.”
“Aren’t you worried that your family in Poland will find out about what you do?”
“I’m an adult and it’s my business. I send them the money and they’re all happy, they don’t ask what I do and I’m not going to tell them anyway.”
“How much do you get?” 

Dagmara Przybysz was plagued before her death – and the police and school gloss over the racism shown towards the Polish Girl

“What, are you, HM Revenue? I’m not complaining and I have more money than my friends who slave away in factories for 12 hours each day. When I see them coming home knackered, I can say that I’m in a much better position. I pay my part of the rent, I send money to the family and can afford pretty much everything. When I lived in Poland, we were never well off, so I said to myself: ’I’ve had enough of being poor. I want to start living!’”
“You’re a young woman. Haven’t you ever thought that sooner or later you will want to start a family and the things that you do now will prevent you from finding a boyfriend who would want to marry you?

“I don’t think about it. You need to live here and now. And besides, I’m not doing anything wrong. Every man – though there are also women who want to see me play in front of the camera – likes to look at a nice young body. There are many single blokes for whom I’m the only entertainment, and I simply take advantage of that. OK, time to wrap it up. I have a client up next. See ya!”

GRAŻYNA – MATURE ALLURE

Grażyna came to England 6 years ago. Her husband works in a factory and has no idea what his wife does.
“How do you find clients?”

“I put up announcements on the internet, and sometimes, if my client is satisfied, he’ll recommend me to his friends and business thrives.”
“How much do you take for your services?”
“It Depends. I take less from Polish guys and more from blacks, and obviously you have to pay extra for special stuff.”
“You’re a patriot, I see. Giving a discount to compatriots?”
“Yeah, ’cause they’re good lovers. I take 100 pounds from blacks, and 150 for an animal.” 
“Animal?”

“Yeah. A guy comes with a dog, I play with the animal and the guy’s watching.”
“Is it how you used to work in Poland?”
“Yeah. In Poland I would earn around 2,000 PLN a month, and here I have 3-4 clients a week on average, so I make quite a lot.”
“How do you do it so that your husband doesn’t find out? Doesn’t he ask where you get your money from?”

“My husband doesn’t ask me anything. I also don’t ask him where he goes, and that’s how we live. We don’t have kids, so we both live as we like. I’ve always liked sex and I have a high sex drive, so I am just combining business with pleasure. When I came here, I was even looking for a job in the porn industry, ’cause I always wanted to star in these kinds of films.”
“Who are your clients? Are they only single emigrants?”

“Not only. Many of them are married guys who want to experience something they don’t have at home. Men of different ages: both young and adults, and even men in their 60s. I don’t mind who they are as long as they pay. And of course if they want to do it without a condom, they need to pay extra.”

Poles live on benefits – myth busted! Poles contribute strongly to the British economy

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN

My interviewees do what they do of their own accord, but there are many cases where women are forced to do these things. “I have seen a lot of such cases at work,” says Ms Krystyna, who has worked many years as a psychotherapist. “Women are deceived, promised a different job, and then they end up in the sex business, which is not easy to get out of. The trauma from such an experience stays with a person for a long time, sometimes for the rest of their life. Usually these are women from poor families who want to live a better life, but that life turns out not to be what they expected. The internet makes it very easy to meet new people. We often use it to look for new opportunities to change our lives, and we tend to trust people who tell us exactly what we want to hear. 

If two people meet on the internet and both parties arrange to provide and receive sexual services, those parties agree as to what they want, then this sort of behaviour – although condemned by many for its dubious morality – does not restrain either of the parties, nor their right to the freedom of choice. However, if someone is deceitfully forced to perform sexual acts, this is classified as an offence. 

Cezary Niewadzisz

The 10 WORST employers in the UK – check out how YOUR employer rates!

The parents of 16-year-old Dagmara Przybysz are still suffering over their daughter’s tragic death in the UK. And the truth about the tragic events of May last year does not seem likely to be explained. The girl hanged herself. Why? Officially it is not known. However, what seems incomprehensible to investigators had been known to her school teachers.

Reportedly, she was plagued by a girl gang. But nobody believed her. Frankly speaking, the problem was ignored from the very beginning. And when an investigation was finally launched and the girl’s file was brought to court, it was hoped that the tragedy would be explained by the Pool Academy in Redruth, Cornwall on 17 May 2016.

This was the greatest hope of  the suicide victim’s parents. But there was a wider interest, too. It is no secret that in many schools all over the world adolescent violence is a fact. British schools are no exception. Dagmara’s case at its present stage suggests that allegedly the teachers and directors of the school where she committed suicide were fine. If this is so, why did that young, beautiful and ambitious Polish girl take her own life? Why were the signals that she was plagued by her peers, girl-friends, ignored? The indolence of the services that were too late in intervening to rescue the girl is another issue.

Poles live on benefits – myth busted! Poles contribute strongly to the British economy

The scenario can reoccur

Dagmara’s parents know that nobody can restore their daughter’s life. Yet, they hoped they could find out the reasons for the tragedy, as well as the perpetrators. To explain the circumstances could help prevent other tragedies. They are disappointed. What seems most important today is… peace of mind and a concern for the “reputation” of the school where the tragedy occurred. No one wants a blemish on the education system, one that has failed to address the problem of racism.

Let’s not blame Brexit

Is not calling Dagmara a “stupid Pole” or telling her to “get out to her country” a form of racism? Brexit is not to blame here – it is the school’s teachers and managers who did not see a way to prevent such tragedies in the multicultural society. The “system” has won. At least for the time being, as the coroner stated that Dagmara’s death did not result from racist pressure from her peers. However, the teachers failed totally. Not only because they were not able to prevent or stop the abuse of the  Polish girl, but also because they failed to come to Dagmara’s aid when the tragedy happened. And every minute was crucial in that case. Coroner, Dr Emma Carlyon, now needs an honest reflection to answer the question: what made her issue the surprising opinion that there was no evidence for Dagmara’s being plagued at school, except for one message that she sent to her boyfriend that she felt hounded at school?

Happy people don’t hang themselves

But the coroner contradicts herself. Carlyon said that Dagmara experienced “trouble” from her peers right before her death, yet the coroner did not take this fact into account. Rather, Carlyon puts emphasis on the fact that the Polish girl was satisfied with her relationship with her boyfriend and was happy to go to a school ball with him. Does such a happy girl commit suicide, hanging herself at school? Carlyon states that there was no evidence for any mental problems with Dagmara, that the girl did not suffer from any racist behaviour in her environment. Teachers described Dagmara as a friendly, happy girl with an upbeat character, who loved football.

Ewelina, mother of the deceased, says that there was a certain girl at school who was hard on Dagmara. She called her names. “I don’t know what she told my daughter a couple of days before her death. I don’t know if that was a racist incident, but I can say that Dagmara would often be called a ‘stupid Pole’.”

The woman adds that in her opinion, Dagmara’s greatest problem was not the racist harassment, but rather constant bullying and persecution. Dagmara’s boyfriend, Lewis Simpson, heard Dagmara say that her girl acquaintances told kept telling her to go back to Poland. That hurt Dagmara a lot.

School: she was ok

And what about the school? There were no reports of Dagmara’s suffering due to bullying or racist behaviour. At least this is what the school’s deputy head, Lisette Neesham, claims. Neesham states that the school is very serious about such behaviour. We have written about the tragedy many a time. We wrote about a turning point which – as it seemed – occurred when it turned out that the previous suspicions as to the causes of Dagmara’s desperate step proved justified. Investigating officers found that the teenage girl had problems with other girls. Before her final act, Dagmara complained about racist comments from her peers. Even earlier, when she completed an internet questionnaire, she wrote that such slurs were her most serious problem at school. She grumbled about the distress she went through over the rumours spread behind her back. 

Dagmara’s grandmother living in Poland does not understand the behaviour of the British girls. She said that when her granddaughter turned 16, nobody at school wished her happy birthday. When it was suggested that Dagmara had mental problems, Zofia Dobek, Dagmara’s grandmother from  Radgoszcz, Małopolska, stated categorically: "nonsense". According to her, this was just a cover for the true reasons for her granddaughter’s death. Neither did the coroner find any mental disorders in the Polish teenager. Zofia Dobek remembers her granddaughter saying that she did not understand why she was persecuted at school. Zofia last saw Dagmara in August 2015. She reports her granddaughter longing for her country and friends. This is why she visited her homeland often. “I really missed her. She told me not to be sad – she tried to comfort me” – remembers the grandmother of the 16-year-old.

A "Polish"* accountant stole money and spent it, but has not been put behind bars 

Broken dreams and plans

Dagmara’s story resembles those of other teenagers who came to the UK with their parents to start a new life. Dagmara came here as a seven-year-old. She had great expectations for her British future. When her body was found dead at school, newspapers reported a “sudden and unexplained event.” Soon however, it turned out that what her friends and relatives suspected was true. It was Dagmara’s peers who hounded her. Her dead body was found on a May afternoon, several minutes past 2:00 p.m. Attempts at resuscitation proved futile – it was too late, and there was no adequate equipment. She was pronounced dead at the scene. The police state there was doubtful evidence of any racist behaviour of her peers. They only refer to what Dagmara had posted at ask.fm. When asked about any problems at school, she answered: "racism". The Pole explained that she was sad when people she thought were her friends turned out to be nasty. Zelma Hill, representative of the school Dagmara attended says that everybody took the Polish student’s death very emotionally. On the one hand, Dagmara’s being friendly to her peers, on the other – malicious attacks at her. Plus, the management of the institution which feels it has no need to redeem itself.

The police have bungled the job

When the police started their investigation into the tragic death, they assumed there were no suspects. And the case got stuck although it was not difficult to find people who knew how Dagmara had been treated at school. John Hannaford, Camborne and Redruth Police Inspector, now prefers to remember that his people expressed their sympathy to the girl’s family than to comment on the details of the case.

The said text posted by Dagmara has overshadowed the case form the beginning, and has still remained relevant. Had the police followed the clue, they would probably have arrived at the conclusion that the Polish teenager was persecuted and hounded.

– Do you experience any problems at school? "Racism". 
– What makes you sad? "When people who you think are your friends are behind such dirty tricks". These are Dagmara’s answers found at a teenage Internet portal.
 
The Polish teenager studied at the Pool Academy in Pool, between Camborne and Redruth. She had ambitious plans for the future. They are, sadly, gone with her tragic death. British tabloids feeding on scandals focused their attention on Dagmara’s problems with her environment. They were strongly refuted, yet today it turns out that they were on the right track. It only takes a glance at the Internet forums where parents of Polish kids attending schools in the UK exchange their comments, to find out that persecution from the local people is not a rare thing. From the beginning the case was ill-handled. Since it was assumed that there were no third parties involved and the school prohibited its students from commenting on the tragedy in the media, then we are not really talking about “explaining” the circumstances. 

The police had their version, and the girl’s environment has its own version. It was no secret that Dagmara did not have good peer relationships at school. Racist comments from other students were common. When she was found dead, comments started to be voiced that she had been hounded. Do we need another tragedy for the heads of British schools to notice the problem of racism towards Polish pupils?

Marek Piotrowski

The British woke up when the Polish begun to leave the UK

The story of an accountant called “a Pole living in the UK” in the British media appears unbelievable, but it’s true. A 41-year-old woman called Diana Vysniauskiene indulged in fabulous weekends in the Middle East, namely in Dubai, where everything is expensive as hell. There’s nothing strange about that, except for the fact that Diana could afford it thanks to her illegal use of her employer’s money. To put it outright: she stole the money, 122,000 pounds sterling!

But it is not all. What is most intriguing about the story, is the fact that the woman has not been put behind bars. Why? A British judge found her arguments sufficient and suspended her sentence. And nobody knows what has been decided about the money the woman stole. We can only infer that there will be some reconciliation agreement and she will have to return at least part, if not all, of the money. However, the judge hearing her case did not mention anything about that. And her employer is not just anybody – it is S-RM Intelligence and Risk Consulting Ltd., which specializes in the protection of businesses against network attacks, among other things.

As the investigation has shown, the 41-year-old Diana Vysniauskiene started to transfer monies from S-RM Intelligence and Risk Consulting Ltd (S-RM) to three private accounts when she was in charge of the firm’s finances in October 2015. The single mum used the stolen funds to finance her indulgences. To be more specific, to pay for her lavish weekends in Middle East. And she continued to do so till this January, when a company audit alerted the managers to the scam, and traced the one who had fleeced them. The evidence held against Diana, a resident of West Byfleet, an atmospheric town in Surrey, Woking, was indisputable. The woman was faced with imprisonment, which would mean leaving her house in the town 33 km from central London. Fortunately for her, it all ended up otherwise. She is not going to go inside.

The British woke up when the Polish begun to leave the UK

Why did the judge believe her?

It is hard to tell whether her naive explanations or a sophisticated line of defence convinced the judge. Diana explained her conduct to the investigators by more or less whining that she – as a foreigner in the UK – could not get promotion, and that is why decided to supplement her wages in her own way – and spend her leisure time in a wonderful climate and beautiful hotels. One might say that her social status was elevated, being employed by a renowned company seated in Swan Lane in central London dealing with business risks and cyber protection in business worldwide.

Diana charged a lot for her work. No doubt, she also managed to plead her case by explaining that if she was to be imprisoned for her 14 months of swindles, then her daughter would be at risk of… homelessness, which the jurisdiction of highly-civilised Britain would probably not allow. Hence the decision to suspend the sentence. Rizwan Anwar, defending Diana Vysniauskiene in these unusual proceedings, said she had “explained some dissatisfaction and grievances against her employers”.

I was given no chance

Anwar added that the woman came to the UK well-aware of her capabilities and competences. She had been striving to improve her station, until five years ago when she took up a job with this firm. But, as his client claimed, “there were various barriers to moving up the ladder, up the chain.” And at a point she realised that being a woman and a foreigner, she came across major problems and difficulty in getting what she wanted.

In those circumstances was handed a two-year suspended sentence. In court, Anwar claimed that “when her senior colleague was promoted and moved on she was then tasked with doing two peoples’ jobs". Diana explained that such pressures from her employers to work more and more and still get paid the same made her make that “fatal decision which was to commit this fraud.”

Regret

Vysniauskiene says she is “’ashamed and devastated’ about what she did.” She takes it very emotionally. Said Anwar explained that after his client got caught, she did everything she possibly could to protect her daughter’s future, so she took out loans and sold everything she had in order to provide for her child in the face of her going to prison.

“She was genuinely convinced that once the court sends her to prison, her daughter would be rendered homeless,” adds Anwar. He hoped that if the court could “find it in the facts of this particular individual to move this across into any of the other ranges where it can border on a suspended sentence she would be very, very lucky.”

Judge Jeremy Donne, QC, was clear about the woman’s guilt: “It’s a serious fraud, it took place over a 14-month period of time, there was clearly an element of planning because you transferred monies that belonged to your employer into three different bank accounts and you used that money to improve your lifestyle”. He found the fraud she had committed to be “of high culpability” as she had abused her employer’s trust, and shook the faith in the principles and system in place.

Almost half of the highly skilled labour force could leave the UK within five years!

She convinced the judge

Judge Donne suspended the defendant’s sentence because she pleaded guilty, and did not misrepresent or mislead during the investigation or the hearing. Additionally, what he found appealing was “her good character, her remorse, her medical condition and the fact that she has caring responsibilities for her mother and daughter.”

The judge admitted openly that initially he had thought of three years imprisonment. But he considered the mitigating factors and her guilty plea to finally arrive at the said conclusion that her punishment could be suspended. “In my judgement, as I say, you have learned your lesson,” added Judge Donne.
Hence the final sentence: two years imprisonment suspended for two years. But that is not all. Additionally, the judge ordered her to carry out 200 hours of unpaid social work, observe a three-month curfew between 8pm-6am and carry out a number of rehabilitation activities to restore her as a good citizen.

Don’t do this again

The judge went on to explain it to her: "You have come very close to going to prison today, you know that, very close indeed. I want you to think very carefully about what it is you have done,” and added: “Don’t do this again, don’t come before the courts again".

From the formal point of view the case seems closed. It is very likely though that Diana’s managers will now strive to recover at least part of the money they lost. It seems that the company’s action is not going to be too “offensive”, as it is not in its interest to wash their dirty linen in public. They are surely not interested in revealing, for instance, further cases of employee discrimination based on sex or country of origin, but that’s another story.

Vysniauskiene’s case should, however, come as a warning for anyone who would think of following in her footsteps. You may not be as lucky as she has been with the gentle judge. To quote a classic: Do not go that way!

* Taking into consideration how many “dirty doings” that have not been committed by Poles are still attributed to us in British tabloids, and not being sure whether Diana Vysniauskiene is Polish at all, I contacted the company that used to employ her (and that was robbed by her) to verify her nationality. And I still have received an answer to this day.

Jakub Mróz

Not all financial institutions should be trusted, but Omni Finances should!

The movement is not intense yet, though it has been noticed that the Polish have been gradually leaving. While it is not, and may not ever become a wave, local businesspeople have sounded the alarm. They are afraid of being left with no labour force and they pick apart the politics pursued by Theresa May, who wants to stop mass immigration to the UK. British entrepreneurs alert: without immigrants, we are going to be put into the streets – our economy is going to suffer.

The Polish have several reasons to leave the UK: the weakening pound, jeopardized rights upon Brexit, and finally the at-times lousy attitudes towards “strangers”, as many of the British call immigrants.

But politicians who have so strongly agitated for Brexit are eventually waking up from their lethargy and are noticing the problems that may be attributed to the dropping numbers of immigrants. Businesses were the first to see through, and have been warning that soon there will a shortage of job seekers, especially in agriculture. And the British can see it themselves, that they are going to lose out due to the Polish exodus. It was not long ago that Michael Gove, the Leave campaign leader, was propagating anti-migrant slogans. Now, he has become a completely different man – he has woken up and started advocating opposite ideas: We must not cut our economy off from the labour force it needs upon Brexit.

Let’s save our economy!

Now it is Gove himself who is signalling to the government to leave the door open for immigrants after Brexit. Why? To protect the British economy. Gove is not an ordinary politician – he is the new environment minister of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in Theresa May's post-election reshuffle. And farmers have clearly appealed to his reasoning as regards immigrants.

”No-one wants zero immigration,” says the minister now and warns that this could jeopardise the British economy in this time of trial involved in exiting the European Union. This is why Gove claims that the maintenance of the labour market in terms of immigrants should be one of the most important topics in London’s talks with Brussels.

His words are in line with the opinions of many top politicians of the ruling party, including Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, who admits that the approach towards Brexit should be reconsidered in the light of the results of the recent pre-term parliamentary elections, which were catastrophic for the Conservatives. Today, Hammond acknowledges overtly that the Conservatives did not speak enough and fairly about the economy during the election campaign.

“I reckon – as very many British people probably do– that we should prioritise protection of our labour market in our talks with the EU,” appeals Hammond. Both him, and said Gove, are truly afraid that reduced immigration after Brexit will result in a shortage of labour force in many industries. However, they keep forgetting that it is precisely the immigration issue which prevailed during the memorable Brexit referendum. The British were being intimidated by immigrants. The Conservatives kept repeating that they would reduce annual immigration to the UK to below a hundred thousand.

They do not intimidate any more

Gove, who  played a leading role in last-year’s Leave Vote, said that he was afraid of the tension between the protection of jobs and reduced migration. Today, he sees it differently. Politicians did not care to heed the reports which best showed that the United Kingdom needs a lot of immigrants. Many sectors of the British economy will stumble without foreigners, as immigrants from the EU Member States occupy one in nine jobs in the UK.

Not long ago, the British were dissuaded from the open-door policy, feeling threatened by the migrants flooding their country and depriving native Brits of their jobs. But now the anti-EU critics have quietened down. Who can replace Polish or Bulgarian nurses? Who will work in hotels, ensure the tidiness of urban greenery or do farm work?

Steven Woolfe, independent politician, was only recently mouthing off about the uncontrolled inflow of immigrants to the UK. Today he is quiet, or maybe he has finally read enough about the real needs of the British economy. And the truth is that over 11 per cent of the UK labour market is occupied by foreigners. Immigrants are employed mostly in commerce, and in hotel and catering services, accounting for over 760 thousand job holders.

Those people do not deprive local people of jobs, as the British are not at all eager to do this kind of work. A further 770 thousand job holders are employed in the sales of various goods or in cleaning services. Most of them are people from the EU. Eight percent of factory workers come from eight countries that accessed the EU in 2004: Poland, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

No Poles – no way

Recently, Steven Woolfe said that to lean on the labour of those people in the long run is unacceptable. Today, he does not say so. In fact, he says nothing. An army of farm, forest and fishery workers grew from the comers form the new UE Member States. Immigrants from the said eight countries account for seven per cent of job holders in these sectors.

One in eight employees in finance or business sectors, a total of nearly 400 thousand people, come from the EU Member States. And finally, there is public administration, education, and healthcare employing 700 thousand people, one fourth of them being EU immigrants. According to Jane Collins of UKIP, which pressed on Brexit and virtually spat on immigrants, it is the strangers who spoil the system of financing people in the UK, as their great numbers permit wage scaling which favours the rich.

Alp Mehmet of Migration Watch UK argues that native businesses should focus on recruiting personnel among the UK’s native people, and only acquire from abroad those with particularly high professional competences.

They tempt immigrants themselves

The situation is evolving dynamically: British employers are not willing to wait for politicians and are tempting Poles and other immigrants with attractive terms of employment. And it is not only about higher wages, but also better social benefits (accommodation), or even spare-time recreation opportunities. British farmers are most alarmed. They have no doubt that they will be short of labour force. They are under no illusions: getting rid of immigrants, putting obstacles in their way or maintaining uncertainty after Brexit is a tragedy for the British labour market. Farmers’ contracts collapse, and their contractors withdraw from cooperation.

And it is all because of the outflow of seasonal workers, mostly immigrants. And you cannot switch to another type of production right away, alerts Neil Vickers, pastor at the Boston Methodist Church, who knows the moods both of the leaving immigrants, and of the local farmers. Farmers know that seasonal labour, which cannot be automated in many respects and which must be done manually, is not going to succeed without immigrants’ contribution. Shamefully, the knowledge is not shared by British politicians. And hence the spontaneous actions taken by farmers who are tempting immigrants with better wages and social terms in order to just keep their businesses afloat.

Not all financial institutions should be trusted, but Omni Finances should!

Farmers participating in their associations’ meetings are voicing sharp criticism against politicians, who seem to be out of touch with the reality. And meanwhile, half of the workers from the European Union have not shown up for the opening of the harvesting season. It will soon be similar in British hospitals, with dropping numbers of nurses.

The same is going to happen in industry, construction and services. A recent Oxford University report shows a visible drop in the number of Poles applying for a National Insurance Number, which is a necessary condition to take up a job in the UK. In the first quarter of 2016 there were 40 thousand applicants, and in the same period this year the number was only 26 thousand, the least since Poland accessed the EU in 2004.

The reasons include the plummeting pound (which has over a year lost 16% in value as compare to zloty), uncertainty as regards immigrant rights following Brexit, and unfavourable attitudes of local people. The British economy needs new workers. It’s growing slowly, in fact its growth is the slowest among all the community states – and it is in these circumstances that it receives the blow in the form of reduced immigrant numbers. London is going to fight with Brussels about immigrants, as May has no intention of withdrawing from her notions to reduce the numbers of ‘strangers’.

And here there is a clash between the interests of local business which needs a labour force, and Brussels, which not going to give up on immigrants. Its argument is the 1.5 million Brits living in its Member States. Brussels makes it clear: after Brexit, immigrants must retain their rights. The Tory party claims that Brussels plays too rough, but the latest elections have shown that the British do not share this opinion any more.

From now on you can read Polish Express in English and share it with your english-speaking friends!

Marek Piotrowski

What bank clients complain most often about are well-hidden charges, small print on their forms, thousands of incomprehensible words on the documents they are given to sign…  It is hard to know your way around in the tangle of vague bank provisions. Do you understand each and every word on the forms you are given to sign when you come to a bank to take a loan or run a minor banking errand?

Can bank terms and conditions be simple at all? Most bank clients, often Poles living in the UK, can find it difficult to understand the language used by British banks. Fortunately, there are firms that have for many years earned exceptional confidence among their clients. 

Do you run your own business? Get the Trusted Company (UK) certificate!

Omni Finance has for many years helped recover monies unduly charged by British banks from the Polish community – and others – in the UK. Omni Finances is the only company dealing with the recovery of fees charged unfairly by banks to be positively verified as a Trusted Company. Dariusz Polak, Managing Director at Omni Finances attributes its success in the professional approach of the whole advisory team employed at Omni Finances.

When asked why the Polish chose to trust this particular company to conduct their most complicated banking transactions, including reclaim of unlawfully taken funds, managed by professionals, Dariusz Polak says: "We are people of the same kind our clients are. We can understand how hard it is to individually fight against the banking machine, and therefore we put great emphasis on our client’s trust. It is our mission to help those who have been cheated by banking institutions in the UK. The clients of Omni Finances are granted fair treatment right away – we ensure that all our clients have full knowledge of the stage of their cases.

We make every effort to cut all the procedures down to an absolute minimum. And we involve our clients only when necessary. Thanks to our refined strategy the entire process is usually closed within 12-16 weeks of the moment we have completed client documentation". When asked about the benefits of their cooperation with Omni Finances, clients also emphasise that Omni is the only company on the market that can be trusted, as the Trusted Company certificate has a great significance on the British market. "Polish Express" asked Grzegorz about his opinion about the way Omni Finances dealt with his case, and he replied:

"My case was seen to very quickly; thanks to the intervention of the Omni Finances lawyers, my bank did not protest or delay anything, and cooperated promptly instead. So, I recovered a pretty sum. My communications with Omni Claim were smooth and friendly, and their emails kept me informed about the stages my case was proceeding through.

I’d like to add that you should not compromise with any bank. I simply ignored the phone calls from my bank. I can truly recommend Omni Claim as it is really trustworthy". And Dariusz Polak adds: "It is worthwhile to undergo the Trusted Company procedure – once you are positively verified, your clients are assured they can be confident about their transactions as the company has no debt, no court orders, and most importantly serves its clients with diligence and respect.” 

When opening or expanding a business, you need to employ people. The right people. Do not ever economise on your employees. In building your professional team you’ll be assured of achieving so much more when you refuse to settle for less. You need to trust your people. You can’t be present in the office or available on the phone all the time, so do not spare on your human resources, as they are your most important asset. And nearly 35% companies worldwide find it difficult to secure competent personnel.

So, how do you find trustworthy employees who can be vested with a variety of challenging tasks and stay within their capabilities?

"When employing new specialists, I always consider how a particular person can contribute to the development of my company. Whether he or she is flexible enough, ambitious, ready to face new challenges” – says Agnieszka Moryc, Admiral Tax Managing Director and expert in tax optimization in the UK.

“When I employ a specialist in our company, I must first of all be willing to cooperate with that person. I cannot imagine a situation where a team working in one office is not able to support one another, cannot communicate with one another and creates a bad work atmosphere. Simply put, a new specialist should match our team,” says Agnieszka Moryc.

"Besides competence, employee trustworthiness is of great importance – maybe even more so. Clients can trust us only if we trust ourselves first. And today customer confidence  one of the key factors that can help you stand out in the market and leave competition far behind” – adds Moryc.

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The Admiral Tax team did not hesitate to have itself verified within the Trusted Company program, as the company is going to benefit from the positive verification for a long time. When asked whether she makes all decisions herself or seeks her team’s advice, Moryc replied: "I would often ask the opinion of particular department leaders, but I would also frequently brainstorm within the whole team, because I can rely on them. And as I have already mentioned, I trust their knowledge, analytical skills and business intuition."

Do you run your own business? Get the Trusted Company (UK) certificate!

Ever since becoming positively verified and earning a Trusted Company certificate, Admiral Tax’s customer portfolio has grown. The professional team know very well that they have had great influence over the growing trust in their company. They also feel more appreciated now, and not only the company benefits, but every individual employee as well.

 4 major steps that can help you succeed in business – part I

One of the cruellest criminals in the UK, a woman who in cold blood murdered a Polish man and others, will not let herself be forgotten. This time, she is going to spend a year in solitary confinement for a murderous plan she devised in the strict-regime prison. As it turns out, Joanna Dennehy, pretending to be a tough woman, complained after her arrest that imprisonment did not do good to her and she planned a daring escape. The plan was to be perfect, and there was going to be a victim: Dennehy was to murder a prison guard, and then use the guard’s fingerprints to outwit the biometric security system and break out.

Fortunately, prison keepers managed to detect the plot, which involved two other woman-prisoners. Joanna was going to kill a  female guard to get hold of her cell keys, and take her victim’s fingerprints to cheat the prison’s biometric security system. Tom Weisselberg of the UK Department of Justice states that she might have succeeded. The plan was, however, found in the murderer’s diary. As a result, 34-year old Dennehy will spend a year in a solitary confinement. You might think that there’s no way such a convict could escape.

The guards in the prison where Dennehy was detained knew perfectly well who she was, as she had been sentenced to life for having murdered three men and hurting two others. She has no chance of early release. Dennehy is serving her sentence in Bronzefield prison, near Ashford, Surrey. Weisselberg says that they are sure not to let her make another attempt at escape. The particulars of the two other prisoners involved in the murderous plan have not been disclosed. And the plan was thoroughly thought-out, including cutting off the hand of the guard in order to get her fingerprints.
 

A devil woman

Everyone has long known that Dennehy could not be rehabilitated. When her life sentence was being pronounced, she only smiled! Specialists who observed Joanna Dennehy in  prison were in agreement that she “had an appetite for killing”, and psychiatrists added that she was “a natural born sadist.” And there was one more thing that the investigating officers could not fathom: Why would such an experienced murderer develop her escape scenario in the pages of her diary?
 
Four years ago, Dennehy committed a cruel crime which is still echoing, not only in the UK: She killed three men in cold blood. 31-year-old Łukasz Słaboszewski, a Pole, was her first victim. Dennehy stabbed him to death and dropped his body in a ditch. The circumstances of his death will probably never be explained, as the murderer herself has not been willing to provide any details. Słaboszewski, ill-fated to come across this cruel British woman, had gone to the UK from Nowa Sól. He had been caught stealing in Poland, so he had to leave the country quickly. He worked as a warehouse operative in Peterborough. In the UK, he did not violate the law, and still the local police – within its routine action – found and arrested him on the grounds of concealing his transgressions in Poland.
 

A nice but deadly English woman

Słaboszewski might have been deported to Poland. However, on a more thorough investigation, he was found to be guilty of only a minor offence, and therefore he was permitted to stay in Peterborough. So, he turned back to his warehousing duties and living in a rented room. It was in that house that he got to know Joanna Dennehy. He even boasted to his peers that he had met a nice English woman. Neither he or the other men who were unfortunate enough to meet Joanna realized what a freak she was. She slept around with random men, took drugs, drank alcohol, and finally committed crimes. This was probably the case with our countryman, whose body was found on a March day in 2013 in a ditch.
 
Two more murders were later committed in a house at Rolleston Garth in Welland. Kevin Lee and John Chapman were Dennehy’s two other victims. The motive for the crimes has not been revealed, and the police only stated that they had been stabbed. It is not known how the crime originated or what were its circumstances. The murderer dropped her victims’ bodies in the backwoods.

 
Słaboszewski, the first to be murdered, was killed on 19 March 2013. He was stabbed in the heart, then the woman took his body out of the house and put it on a heap of garbage. She must have found the sight very funny, as she was smiled and showed the dead body to a teenager passing by. The day after, she murdered 56-year-old Chapman. She stabbed him 30 times. Afterwards, she called her lover, Gary Stretch, and told him that “she had done that.”

Only two hours later she killed another man, the 48-year-old father of her children, Kevin Lee. He was stabbed as well. On finding the three bodies, the police knew that this was the job of a homicidal maniac. While they looked for the killer all over the neighbourhood, Joanna had already gone to Hereford. There, she met another man who was to be her next victim. “Let’s play”, she encouraged the newly-met Stretch, who miraculously survived his short acquaintance with Joanna.
 

Like Bonnie and Clyde

Joanna got it into her head that she and Stretch were a couple like Bonnie and Clyde – two cruel gangsters who travelled across America in the 1930s killing policemen. “Bloody Joanna” wanted her head-count to reach nine, just like the American duo. She was unpredictable and secretive. The families of her British victims stated that she had virtually brainwashed the men. They might have been spellbound by her charms. They might have felt comfortable in the company of an easy-going woman who liked alcohol and drugs. We will never know the answers to those questions, however. We do know that they must have trusted her completely, never suspecting they could suffer at her hands.

Neither could Joanna’s acquaintances believe she would follow such a nightmarish path. And Joanna was determined to continue to kill. Fortunately, there were no more victims as she did not manage to stab John Rogers and Robin Bereza to death. They were both attacked while walking their dogs. Dennehy attacked Bereza and Rogers on 2 April 2013 within just 20 minutes. On that afternoon, Bereza, a retired fireman, was stabbed with a knife. On the preceding night, he had celebrated his 36th wedding anniversary with his wife Pam.

That day, he was walking his Labrador, when all of a sudden he felt a blow in the neck. He thought he had been hit by a stone. He turned around and saw a woman with a knife in her hand, getting ready to stab again. With his last ounce of strength, the fireman hit the attacker, and she fled. He was immediately taken to hospital by helicopter, where he spent five days in an intensive care ward. “Ever since, I have been strangely afraid – I keep turning around,” says Bereza. A dozen or so minutes later, Joanna Dennehy attacked Rogers, who was walking his dog Archie. Rogers recalls his nightmare: “When I saw her, I begged for mercy, but she kept stabbing me”.
 

Caught due to a tattoo

Joanna was caught thanks to an arrest warrant and a distinguishing feature – a green star tattooed under her right eye. Before her appeal hearing, she wrote a letter to the judge, stating that she was not sorry for what she had done. She was punished, as were her accomplices: Gary Stretch got a life sentence, with a minimum of at least 19 years. Leslie Layton was sentenced to 14 years, and Robert Moore got three years for granting her shelter. When 47-year-old Stretch heard at court that he would have to serve 19 years in prison and then he could have a chance to return to normal life, he was mad with happiness and shouted: “Thank you very much! Thank you very much!”
 
Interestingly, Dennehy was raised in a decent home, and was considered a nice girl. Her problems started when she turned 14 and started playing truant, and drugs appeared in her life as well. Then a series of random affairs, and two children. As a sixteen-year-old she left her parents, never to come back.
 
Psychiatrists dealing with the case are not able to determine at which point the deadly demon was born within her. She herself explained to experts that she had always been curious to know what it was like to murder a man. Her motives haven’t been explained. Neither has it been found where her hatred towards men, three of whom she murdered in cold blood, originated from.
 

Jakub Mroz

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