JEREMCIUK: JAIL FOR GYSY KNIFEMAN

A Lithuanian gypsy who plunged a six inch kitchen knife into a compatriot’s neck for pouring a pint of beer on him in a pub was jailed for nine years today (Thurs).

Iaindes Jeremciuk, 31, ambushed 26-year-old Mantas Kesminas as he left the Black Horse in Ilford, Essex, piercing an artery with a single vicious blow.

The victim lost a litre of blood but survived after quick-thinking police officers gave him instant first aid and rushed him to hospital in a police car.

Jeremciuk was locked up for nine years after he admitted inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent.

Snaresbrook Crown Court heard that at the time of the stabbing he had just completed a prison term for deliberately ramming his car into a group of men he had seen talking to his girlfriend.

Passing sentence this morning, Judge William Kennedy told him: ‘You have had for the last few years an enormous problem with alcohol. It is that, frankly, which has ruined your life.

‘Combined with the taking of desperate drugs, it has reduced you to someone who had on that night no proper control at all.

‘An event in a pub which ordinarily would have made you cross, made you a man who took a knife, walked across the street where people entirely unconnected with the incident were walking, and plunged that knife into the neck of the victim.

‘You may not think so at this instant, but you are truly a very fortunate man.

‘But for the quite superb sense and responsibility of the police officers, I am entirely satisfied that that man would have died.

‘In those circumstances, you would have been facing a sentence that would have kept you in imprisonment for around 25 years.’

As he was led to the cells, a tearful Jeremciuk called out in Lithuanian to weeping family members in the public gallery.

Jonathan Foy, prosecuting, said on 30 March this year, Jeremciuk went on a 10 hour drinking session. By that evening, he was in the Black Horse in Station Road, Ilford with his father.

They began talking to a group of fellow Lithuanians they had not met before, among them Mr Kesminas, and the two groups drank beer and played pool together.

Mr Foy said that around 11pm, a dispute arose which culminated in the defendant’s father ‘taking him out of the public house.’

Andrew Cohen, defending Jeremciuk, said Mr Kesminas and his friends were ethnic Lithuanians whereas the defendant and his father were Lithuanian Roman Gypsies.

He said: ‘They sadly suffer the same discrimination in Lithuania as they do in other parts of Europe.

‘The other group asked him to buy them a drink. He was thanked for his generosity by having a pint poured over his head.’

At around 11pm, Mr Kesminas and his friends left the Black Horse and made their way towards a bus stop.

Mr Foy said: ‘As they walked along the pavement, the defendant ran across the road and confronted them.

‘He struck a blow to the complainant’s neck with a kitchen knife, six inches in length.’

The attack was captured on CCTV and police arrived on the scene almost immediately.

Jeremciuk, who had continued to confront the victim’s friends, tried to run away, discarding the knife as he went, but was arrested.

Initially Mr Kesminas did not appear to be badly hurt, but when he removed his hand from his neck, large amounts of blood started to spurt out.

Hospital staff later discovered that his facial artery had been cut.

Mr Foy said the officers at the scene, led by trained police medic PC Katie Jarvis, ‘effectively saved this man’s life.’

He said: ‘She took the decision that there was no time to call an ambulance. She administered first aid throughout and took the decision to take him to hospital in the police car.

‘Without that intervention this man would certainly have died in the street.’

Mr Foy said two other officers – referred to only as PCs Allardyce and Balu – also played a key role in treating the victim.

Jeremciuk, of no fixed address, admitted wounding with intent to commit grievous bodily harm. He had been accused of attempted murder, but the charge was dropped after his guilty plea to the lesser offence.
ENDS