An extensive Vision investigation has revealed the shocking story of the man who has frequently been found sleeping rough in University accommodation blocks and stealing food across campus.
Known on campus as ‘Micha’ , ‘The Derwent Tramp’ and ‘Polish Mike’, we can reveal his true identity is, Mickal Grabarczyk, a migrant from Poland.
This information came to light as it was discovered Mickal is currently on police bail, after he was arrested on campus and charged with assaulting a police officer and drunk and disorderly behaviour.
However, Mickal’s story extends much further, there is evidence that, for several months he has been posing as a student. A Halifax college foreign exchange student explained to Vision how he met Mickal in Freshers’ week, believing him to be a first year student, and allowed him to “use my student card to apply for several football teams.”
It was only by attempting to play for several football teams, with this borrowed ID that Mickal was brought to the attention of the University authorities.
After being selected for Halifax Seconds, the captain, Mark Lund, was told that Mickal was ineligible as he had already played for a different Wentworth, again posing as a student. Lund, claims, “I was already a bit suspicious, as the ID didn’t look anything like him, so we sent an e-mail to him asking him to bring his real ID to training. When he didn’t turn up for any more sessions we alerted the University that someone may be posing as a student, and described him to Security Services who found him and moved him on.”
Vision can reveal that Mickal was not in fact a student, but had merely been sleeping rough on various locations across campus, and after he was moved on from campus Mickal took advantage of an offer of shelter from older students.
A third year linguistics student met and befriended Mickal and invited him to stay at his house, ” He wasn’t a student, he said he was just visiting England from Poland. He told me how he had been sleeping rough for months on campus, and had taken food when he was hungry, he complained about the security staff who constantly tried to move him on. After hearing this I asked him to stay with me because he had no place else to stay, and no one else to call upon.”
However, Mickal began to cause tension in the student’s house, a fellow housemate explained, “It is probably just prejudice but I didn’t get a good feeling off him, he shouted a lot, and got quite aggressive after we confronted him about using other student’s ID.”
Mickal’s stay with these students came to an abrupt end after a terrifying early morning raid on their student home.
“At about 5am several police came and searched the room Mickal had been staying in, they took out a wallet with a University ID and a driving license in it. Mickal told us that he had been arrested on campus and had given the police our address as his residence.”
After the raid Mickal was asked to leave the house, and there are conflicting reports of his current whereabouts.
Although he has allegedly been sighted at the library, those that offered him shelter claim that he has left the area as, “he felt York wasn’t very pleasant to him.”