Man, 50, jailed for £25,000 worth of criminal damage in Eastleigh

A 50-year-old man from Eastleigh has been jailed for 18 months for criminal damage, a racially aggravated public order offence and breach of a 24-month suspended sentence.

Julian Alexander Rutkowski, of Weston Way, pleaded guilty to all the offences and was sentenced at Southampton Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday (9 January).

It follows a series of incidents in the early hours of the morning on Friday 16 September 2022, during which Rutkowski caused more than £25,000 worth of damage to businesses in Eastleigh town centre.

At approximately 3.45am on the day in question, he spent half an hour smashing shop windows and doors and damaging an ATM.

Among the shops he targeted were banks and charity shops. The full list of the stores and the value of the damage caused is as follows;

- Halifax - £3,492.23
- Tesco Express - £1,525.80
- Timpson - £1283.38
- Lloyds - £6,610.90
- Barter For Things - £3,891.15
- Emmaus - £6,348.36
- The Salvation Army - £2,220
- Istanbull Grill - £400

As well as being identified from CCTV footage, crime scene investigators were also able to place Rutkowski at the scene of the crimes after finding traces of his blood on some of the smashed glass.

He was also sentenced in relation to an incident on Friday 16 December, during which he entered a local GP surgery and racially abused a patient. During the incident, he was also verbally abusive towards staff members.

He received six months’ imprisonment for this, to run concurrent to the 18 months already handed down to him for the criminal damage and breach of suspended sentence.

PC Carly Burt said: “I am very pleased with the outcome of this sentence and to see that Rutkowski will be spending time behind bars for his crimes.

“In the space of half an hour on the morning of 16 September, he caused widespread damage to several businesses, leaving the owners and staff to clear away his mess and foot the significant bill for all the repairs.

“The victim at the GP surgery was innocently going about her day when Rutkowski racially abused her in front of other patients and staff members.

“This was a completely unprovoked verbal attack, which no person should ever have to experience.

“I’d like to place on record my thanks praise to all the victims in these cases for speaking to us, supporting us in our investigation and helping to ensure Rutkowski was jailed.”

District Commander for Eastleigh, Chief Inspector Matt Paling, said: “You’ll regularly hear us talking about relentlessly pursuing criminals across the Eastleigh district.

“This is just another example of that relentless pursuit. We won’t tolerate the behaviour that Rutkowski displayed on these two dates in 2022.

“We will always do everything we can to ensure offenders are brought to justice and to make sure the people of Eastleigh feel safe, and are safe.”