Wojciech Strojek arrived in the Irish courts with ten convictions from Poland for assault, threats, intoxicated driving and public-order offending. In three months he assaulted his partner’s former husband, assaulted a paramedic and then trapped his partner in a bathroom, cut her wrist and held a knife to her throat while her children were nearby.
Three Irish incidents
On 18 February 2020, Strojek assaulted his then partner’s former husband. On 12 March, he assaulted a paramedic at James Connolly Hospital. The most serious incident followed on 4 April at the woman’s Dublin home.
Strojek trapped her in a downstairs bathroom, punched and insulted her and said he would kill her. He cut her wrist slightly with a kitchen knife, held it to her throat and threatened to cut her wrists and throat. He told her she would never see her children again.
The woman used a prearranged safety code. Her 14-year-old daughter understood it and called Gardaí. The incident lasted approximately thirty minutes.
The record from Poland
Strojek is a Polish national. He had no previous convictions recorded in Ireland before this sequence, but ten convictions in Poland for assault, threats, intoxicated driving and public-order matters. His defence referred to homelessness, juvenile detention and alcohol abuse.
The cross-border record matters because it showed violence and threats before the Irish offences. The available reporting does not establish when Irish authorities first obtained that information or what checks applied when he entered or settled.
Seven guilty pleas and sentence
Strojek pleaded guilty to false imprisonment, multiple counts of assault causing harm, production of an article and making threats to kill. On 17 November 2020, Judge Martin Nolan imposed five years and six months.
No reliable public appeal, release, prisoner-transfer or EU residence proceeding was located. Because Strojek is an EU citizen, conviction did not itself create an automatic deportation outcome.
Chronology
- Before Ireland: Ten Polish convictions.
- 18 February 2020: Assault on former husband.
- 12 March 2020: Assault on paramedic.
- 4 April 2020: False imprisonment and knife attack.
- 17 November 2020: Five-and-a-half-year sentence.
- 25 July 2026: No later appeal or status outcome located.
Cost benchmark
The full five-and-a-half-year term at the Irish Prison Service’s 2024 staffed-space average represents a gross capacity benchmark of €544,896. A simple quarter-remission illustration is €408,672.
Questions the State should answer
- When did Irish authorities learn of the ten Polish convictions?
- Were they available to Gardaí before the first Irish assault?
- What treatment and domestic-violence risk work occurred in custody?
- Was prisoner transfer or EU residence restriction considered?
- What protection and support followed for the woman and her children?