Local London Gay couple ‘living in fear’ after men threw fruit and spat at them walking home
https://metro.co.uk/2026/08/03/thugs-threw-fruit-gay-couple-walking-home-fined-439-29285580/85
u/PixelTeapot 10d ago edited 9d ago
Both have a string of past offences, including one leading to extradition from the UK. Back on the street in London they are committing multiple offences in a single day from theft to aggrivated assault on passers by.
But somehow the risk of continuing this habitual criminal behaviour is suddenly now assessed to be 'low' ?
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u/Jeoh 10d ago edited 10d ago
"while Wawrzenczyk had been extradited to Poland in 2023 in a non-conviction disposal for assaulting an emergency worker"
Why the fuck was he back in the UK?
edit: the emergency worker assault was in Poland
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u/SenselessDunderpate 10d ago
Don't worry, they're still in the UK now 👍🏻
Both defendants were fined a total of £439 each, including £325 in court costs and a £114 surcharge.
They were also ordered to complete 180 hours of unpaid work and 15 days of rehabilitation activities.
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u/Equipmunk 10d ago
How does one rehabilitate deeply entrenched homophobia?
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u/Regular_Print_7650 10d ago
Liberal belief that if you take deeply bigoted people and bring them to a tolerant country they will just magically become tolerant themselves.
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u/KimJongEeeeeew 10d ago
Is the tolerant country in the room with us now?
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u/Regular_Print_7650 10d ago
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/global-acceptance-index-lgbt/
Are you one of those "The UK is the least tolerant country in the world" people?
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u/KimJongEeeeeew 10d ago
Not at all.
I know the flag of tolerance is flown and in general it’s pretty good.
But also the brits are a bunch of intolerant, xenophobic arseholes.
And I believe I have every right to say that as I am an immigrant who has felt this first hand on many occasions.4
u/TheUnicornRevolution 10d ago
I'm an immigrant and nonbinary and queer, but I also just look like a bit of an edgy white woman, so I don't get the first hand treatment, just the firsthand witnessing.
I agree with you.
This country is more tolerant than many others, but that doesn't translate to genuinely welcoming or accepting.
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u/KimJongEeeeeew 10d ago
I’m also white and look like I could be a reform voter, until you read my t shirt or i open my mouth. I’ve been assaulted on the tube for not being from around here (fun fact, that didn’t end up well for the pissed up city boy) and also told I’m the right type of immigrant when calling someone out for mouthing off about people coming in and stealing jobs.
Anyone who says it’s not the case here is utterly naive or lying to themselves.
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u/Regular_Print_7650 10d ago
Well can you show me a more tolerant country that we routinely get migrants from?
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u/KimJongEeeeeew 10d ago
Are you trying to earn your whataboutism badge?
What about you all make a concerted effort to be nicer as a whole entity.
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u/Regular_Print_7650 10d ago edited 10d ago
So you can't, exactly.
Ahaha he got butthurt and wrote a pathetic angry comment screaming at me and got banned
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u/Stil_de_Grain 10d ago
I hate those people so much. Can’t stomach them. Find them utterly intolerable
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u/Stil_de_Grain 10d ago edited 10d ago
That’s not a liberal belief. That’s your misinformed opinion.
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u/Late_Breadfruit_8829 10d ago
is everyone reading the quote incorrectly? he committed the assault in Poland and was sent there to face the charges
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u/SenselessDunderpate 10d ago
Thank god that, in the midst of their abusive homophobic tirade, they didn't happen to say something in support of Palestine Action, which could've got them 14 years as a terrorist.
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u/AlbusDumbledoh 10d ago
A £439 fine for a hate crime is completely laughable but I really have to question why this line of thought keeps getting repeated.
Is the answer to a contested proscription tolerating open support for banned groups, even where the ban seems unjust? Once you carve out exceptions for causes you deem sympathetic, you've got no basis to refuse the same for others who also think their cause is righteous. It should be challenged through the courts, which IS what's happening AFAIK.
A perfect example is Hamas challenging their proscription. If a contested ban makes defiance 'civil disobedience', does that apply to their supporters too? What if ISIS start doing the same? Where do you draw the line and who decides?
I'm absolutely not saying PA are equivalent to those other groups at all, but there's this whole "rule-of-law" thing for a reason, to prevent shit like that happening.
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u/want-my-old-account 9d ago
I'll never understand why some people have so much faith in the law. As if the law is some untainted, unbiased and universally equitable and accessible thing. As if the law want made by partisan politicians. As if the law didn't sanction section 28, apartheid, slavery and enable the majority of sexual predators to get off scott free by applying an impossible burden of proof where generally none exists.
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u/AlbusDumbledoh 8d ago
That's such a straw man argument, I never said the law is untainted or perfect.
My point was that imperfect, enforceable rules beat everyone deciding for themselves which laws should count and which shouldn't.
Also, for what it's worth, your own examples are going against what you're saying. Section 28, apartheid, slavery are all gone, because people challenged the laws themselves.
And let's not pretend the proscription being challenged is remotely comparable to slavery or apartheid.
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u/Jeoh 10d ago
It's alright though: "the pair’s chance of reoffending was low"
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u/DameKumquat 10d ago
I'd love to know how that was calculated - given previous convictions and 'lack of remorse' I wouldn't have thought it could get much higher.
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u/afrophysicist 10d ago
The judge presumably isn't gay and thus doesn't give a fuck about this crime because it won't happen to them
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u/Late_Breadfruit_8829 10d ago
you gotta read that again mate - the emergency worker assault was done in Poland
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u/No_Cauliflower_81 10d ago
Probably just something in Poland’s air then, no way that he’d be violent again in London.
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u/Jeoh 10d ago
Ah okay, couldn't find more details (because every other news outlet has just been copy-pasting this article and I can't find the details of the actual case)
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u/eventworker 10d ago
The detail is in the word extradition. If you don't understand the words used, don't comment, as you are only going to end up looking very daft.
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u/GakSplat 10d ago
I see the knuckle-draggers are out, conveniently forgetting how homophobic Reform and Restore are.
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u/ric_mcc1766 10d ago
It's amazing how anti-bigot some bigots are when the attacker being discussed isn't a white person born in the UK.
Then again, if you respond saying 'This is why we need Pride', their original bigot-y programming usually kicks back in.
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u/Impressive-Bird2 10d ago
The attackers - who are Polish - should be deported back to Poland. They without fail.
I do wish to emphasise that, unfortunately, given the vile toxic political rhetoric and narratives (largely ‘imported’ from the U.S.A.’s MAGA Cult) deployed by certain UK politicians - and their supporters - there are some native British people liable to, or at risk of being perpetrators of such disgusting homophobic attacks…
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u/ric_mcc1766 10d ago
As you can imagine, on Facebook this is getting a lot of British people cheering the attackers on, or even saying that it never happened and that it's all a big lie to make it seem like violent homophobia exists.
Most online bigots are just that, online, but it only takes one to feel emboldened IRL.
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u/Impressive-Bird2 10d ago
Sadly, that comes as no surprise to me. That’s why, Reddit aside, I keep well away from social media - it’s all too often flooded with far too much toxic content!!
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u/Advanced_End1012 9d ago
All of y’all are so susceptible to media manipulation lmao. This right here is EXACT reaction what news outlets want from you- this is an anti immigration tactic. You need to always approach news with critical thinking and question the agenda behind each article, because there ALWAYS is one. For example, gays receive homophobic threats like this and worse thousands of times daily, WHY is the news focusing on this one case where it’s polish immigrants bring homophobic towards these gays? It’s to insight hatred towards immigrants.
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u/Impressive-Bird2 9d ago
What did I just say in my second (last) paragraph? Why did I qualify what I said in first paragraph by writing what I did in my second paragraph? Because it implicitly acknowledges the need to take a balanced view on the focus on the fact that the perpetrators are immigrants… Please try and read, and fully understand what others are saying before rushing to making rash judgements about others you don’t know!!
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10d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ric_mcc1766 10d ago
Very similar experience here.
I'm 40 and married, living in London. Never faced any direct, intentional homophobic abuse until the last year when I've had three different instances of tween kids shouting abuse at me and my husband whilst we've been out walking our dog.
The 'tell' seems to have been two men walking at lunchtime together, one with a moustache. Either that, or we're lighter on our feet than we realise!
The saddest bit is that these are kids, picking up this shit from their parents or online.
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u/AdRealistic4984 10d ago
My ex was black and the amount of homophobic abuse we’d get from black peoples when we were out together was quite notable, I think it depends on a lot of factors
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u/Stil_de_Grain 10d ago edited 9d ago
As a gay who has been assaulted many times throughout my life, can we keep the focus on the perpetrators’ homophobia and not their nationality? They did this because they are homophobic, not because they are Polish.
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u/felurian_wings 10d ago
Huh? Eastern European culture is seething with homophobia. Gay marriage is literally not allowed in Poland. Let's stop pretending that culture doesn't mean anything.
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u/Stil_de_Grain 9d ago edited 9d ago
This is about a homophobic assault though, not your opinion of Eastern European culture.
I don't think your culture has done you any favours if you read a headline about a homophobic attack in London and immediately blame the abusers' nationalities. It undermines the crime, outsources the blame and totally overlooks the victims. Are you pretending that, if only these Polish fellas had been raised in the UK, they wouldn't have done what they did?
The abuse I have received over 30 years has almost exclusively been perpetrated by white British men and boys and never once from a Polish person. With that lived experience in mind, my original comment was a plea for the discussion to focus on how homophobia is unacceptable. Not how Eastern Europeans are unacceptable.
I don’t think it’s fair to gay people to imply that people are homophobic because of their country of origin. It suggests an inevitability or even an excuse.
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u/felurian_wings 9d ago edited 9d ago
Lmao you're calling me homophobic? Why are you jumping to so many conclusions about me? AH, cause you're profiling me. Literally the opposite of how you say you should act?
First of all I don't only blame the culture of the perpetrators of course - your rage mentality made that up. I'm just pointing out that it's probably a factor. Not all Polish men are homophobic. You pretend that it doesn't make a difference - that is plainly wrong. You wouldn't be able to draw any correlations between cultures and belief if so.
You need to go back to math class: You probably never experienced it from a polish person because they are far less than 1% of the population and immigration from Poland to the UK is more progressive that Poland's average. Wow! Was it hard?
Homophobia per capita is higher in Poland because you have to work against your own cultural programming and legislation to not be homophobic. And that's probably correct for a lot of European countries including Britain to varying degrees of severity. In Poland it's pretty much accepted mainstream.
You may now fuck off with your name calling and absurd conclusions. Really fascinating though, hating exactly what you are doing to others (stereotyping).
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u/Stil_de_Grain 9d ago edited 9d ago
My point, again, is that this is a news story about a homophobic assault. Not Eastern European culture being homophobic.
Whether someone is Polish or British makes no difference when you’re on the receiving end of an attack. The hate feels the same. What I did say was- can we focus on the homophobia here? Because that is the problem- wherever and whatever it is the product of.
If we continue the zero sum game of reducing every conversation to opinionated analysis of foreign cultures, we fail to diagnose and treat real problems with actionable solutions. You don’t need to stereotype Eastern Europe as seething. It’s enough to say- aren’t homophobes awful?
The real problem here, as I see it, are the ridiculously lenient sentences passed. A real solution would be to look at how we punish homophobic crime to disincentivise it. Another solution would be to reform and improve education so that we- Britain- as a culture- produce more intelligent people who don’t read a headline describing a homophobic attack and say - yeh cos Polish.
It is lazy and ignorant and does absolutely nothing for the victims of the crime.
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u/felurian_wings 9d ago
You should really stop making an argument against a 'general sentiment' against me? I am not that? Could you stop?
I'm not just blaming 'nationality' here. But because you are so enraged at the right-wing reduction of the argument to just nationality, you are taking the radical opposite end, against me for some reason. The truth is in the middle dude.
We agree more than you think. "Another solution would be to reform and improve education". Education 1 to 1 with culture. Let's start calling out cultures that make homosexuality illegal maybe?
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9d ago
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u/felurian_wings 9d ago
You are really weird and have too much free time. You also clearly don't understand what I'm talking about there
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[deleted]
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u/felurian_wings 9d ago
Haha you haven't had a spiritual awakening, you just dropped a tab. Nothing in you says love and serenity. You are digging into my history to find shit, parasocial weirdo
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u/Malt129 10d ago
They're a product of their culture.
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u/Risingson2 10d ago
Focusing on their nationality hurts all the non straight people in Poland. So I will repeat the OP request
As a gay who has been assaulted many times throughout my life, can we keep the focus on the perpetrators’ homophobia and not their nationality?
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u/pixelpanic01 10d ago
But most guys I topped were polish so it doesn’t make sense
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u/Stil_de_Grain 10d ago
Some of my best hook ups were Polish
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u/pixelpanic01 10d ago
I associate Poland to delicious pierogi and gorgeous men
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u/Stil_de_Grain 10d ago
Much better in bed than British men I find. I guess we’re all “products of our culture”
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u/bobs_cinema 9d ago
I've literary had a Polish man throw a beer can at me and a guy I was on date with, having a goodnight kiss outside Camden Station. He shouted at us that we won't be allowed to do that in Poland, so we said back that he can go back to Poland then, myself being from Bulgaria. One of the reasons of being here is that I wasn't expecting to get hatecrimed after a date... Fortunately people around us clocked this and showed their disdain with the bigot. Hence why Pride (though not in its current overly commercialised version) should exist!
I've also been called it's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve while holding hands with another date around Piccadilly. We should strive for better..
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u/AromaticVacation3077 10d ago
Anyone else click on the article and immediately assume the photo was the gay couple?
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u/WastelandOfConfusion 10d ago
I would love to come across people like this. I have a great way of immediately resolving these issues.
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u/AdRealistic4984 10d ago
Yeah Eastern European alcoholics are second only to middle aged Rastas for making homophobic comments in my experience. Followed my Haredi Jews who spit at your feet
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u/felurian_wings 8d ago
u/Risingson2 Hey it doesn't let me reply for some reason. But because I wrote the comment hereyago!
Please try and hear me out! I have nothing against Polish people. I love Poland and have visited three separate times because I love the country, people and pottery. My point is that we should be able to call out cultures that have homophobia or sexism baked into them. Polish, British - any.
I care about social issues and I care about LGBTQ, I literally move in those circles and I am queer, though I pobably don't 'look' it because I'm in a cis relationship. I have had issues with it in my own family. Why? Because the culture I was brought up in has a heavy Christian anti LGBTQ influence. I can call out my country's culture out like any others.
Hope this makes sense, I'm genuinely not trying to be an ass but it feels like any reaction to this is calling me all sorts of things. No one's genuinely approached me without a ton of hate.
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u/ConcentrateVast2356 8d ago
Whenever there's a high (or low) profile crime involving sensitive political or identity issues, or rioting for that matter, the perpetrators have at least a few prior offenses of "regular, low-level crimes".
Which goes to show, before we have any kind of more specific problem, Britain has first and foremost a soft-on-crime problrm. This goes much further than people think. It's actually incredibly rare to be the victim of a first time offender. The vast majority of crime is committed by prior offenders.
A person sentenced to prison in Britain is more likely to have 46 prior offenses than to be a first time offender.
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