File complaint against Poland's police

Is it possible to file a complaint against the police in a foreign language like Dutch.

I have an issue with the police in Bogatynia. A year ago the police wanted to question me about a case and i requested a interpreter in my mother language Dutch. I wrote a request and leaved my polish adress/phonenumber behind. One month ago i have been stopped by the police for passport control at that moment the police told me that i was wanted. I went to the policestation with the officers and they made an appointment at the prokatura office 3 days later. I went to the prokatura office they told me i was a suspect and they made a appointment for questioning at the policestation in Bogatynia. The night before my appointment they cancelled it by sms and moved it to the week after. . . one week later the appointment was canceled 3 hours before the appointment. One week later the police where in front of my house because i was wanted, my girlfriend explained everything and showed them documents that i was at the prokatura office 2 weeks before.

I don't know what to do now. I dont have any information about the case (requested for it 4 weeks ago) i get every document in Polish wich i dont understand. This all has effect on my personal/bussines life. Does someone has some advice what to do next and where i can file a complain.

You should have instantly called them, said the late cancellation was totally unacceptable, and demanded that it go ahead.

Your rights.

Little fookers.

After the first cancelled appointment i went to the office to get a signed proof that i was there at the time of appointment. I am being very carefull right now, my trust in this office is very low. I also did some research and saw that this office also was questionable at there reactions after some problems with the election of the new mayor.

I would immediately go to the Dutch embassy/consulate and explain everything that's going on. Hiring a defense lawyer may be a good idea. I am very sorry to hear that - I had a lot of problems with the Polish police also on my recent trip.

In Wroclaw, they're doing some work in my neighborhood, Psie Pole, on the Wisla river. I guess they're building canals or something. Anyway, the city hired a construction company who snuck onto our property and dug an enormous hole. We have a 1.3 hectare property that has a nice 2 story home on it and a large apple orcharch, or at least use to. Anyway, the company dug up a hole literally large enough to fit the foundation for a factory or one of those old communist bloki. The hole itself is probably approaching a hectare. All the apple trees are totally destroyed. My aunt was actually the one who found this out because she was driving next to the property and called me to tell me what was going on. I called the police but all they did was take down the driver's information of the dump trucks and excavators and their license plates. However, they allowed the work to continue and my property continued to get damaged and more and more rubble was being illegally dumped onto the property. I flew to Poland and hired a lawyer. We worked with the police who not only was totally lazy and seemingly refused to do anything, the higher-up officers began to not answer my phone calls. So I had to go in person and after a while they would hide to avoid me. They literally were like hiding and avoiding me so they didn't have to do work. In the 2 months I was in Poland they basically just started an investigation and had some license plates/ids written down. Even though I had every document showing this was my property they still didn't press charges against the company. I had to take a bunch of time off of work, spent $10,000+ on my trip, hotel, airfare, lawyers, food, etc. on top of the income lost as only about 1/4th of my trip was paid for by vacation time. This was barely a vacation. I don't think I've ever been so stressed out and frustrated in my entire life.

On the plane ride back though, as I was reading a magazine, it dawned on me that it would be a good idea to talk to the media about this and perhaps you could too. Exposing police ineptitude would be a good story. I have had several interviews lined up for next time I go to Poland about my case. I would recommend you make yours as public as possible - especially if you are innocent or there is little to no evidence to prove your guilt. Definitely hire a lawyer though and talk to your consulate. If your facing some serious charges and you are in fact guilty and the police can prove it, then I would think about taking every necessary step to avoid prison.

I am truly sorry for you - I know first hand how much of a pain it is dealing with the Polish police. Good luck to you buddy.

Are you sure that its a matter for the Police? It probably isn't being a 'civil matter'.

Strange story Adrian.

If they came unto my land I would have my team there with weapons to get them off.

Legal, and very simple. No need for the police ( who - in certain cities such as Krakow, are the mafia)

No, you don't have a team with weapons.


Looks like the police matter to me.

Im sorry to hear about your story it seems like a common problem with the police. You as victim have a great story for the media and hope that will wake up to arrogant police. Unfortunately there is still a lot of corruption.

I think my case involve my girlfriends dad. This case which is already in court for the 2th day but until i dont receive any information from the police i cant know for sure. The case is very complicated. For about two years ago there was a confrontation between my girlfriends dad and my girlfriend/mother/sister. He attacked them with his friend and they offcourse tried to defense theirselfs at this time i was not around i arrived shortly after.

When it ended he walked away and shot with a gun (i think a airgun) in their direction. Shortly after that he played some theater called ambulance and he layed down on the ground. He was picked up by the ambulance and at the same time the police came. We showed the police the bullit holes in the wall but they where not interested. We went away after it and when i was at home for an hour of 2 i received a call that the house was on fire (i live 20 km from them). At the time the fire started we were at home my mother in law at work and my girlfriends dad in the hospital but his friend was arround. My girlfriends dad did not live in this house only my mother in law with her daughter,

the parents where in proces of divorce. The case about the confrontation and his major injuries (little scratch on his head) is now in court. The judge was very angry at the police for not investigate the shooting and promissed them that there will be consequences for them, what is a great thing. It's also troubling that they admit the shooting but there is no further evidence.

Now i know that there is some talking about me at the court if i was presence or not but there is still no request of my presence at court.

The story are some headlines, there is a lot more that i could write a book. As from now i still dont know a thing about the case what they have against me. I dont think they make me a suspect out of nothing. I am also going to think about the media can be a good story.

Here is a link about the fire there was already a topic about it in the local newspaper
no English translation - link deleted

Sorry about my grammar but think understanding is most important.

Very strange story. A good story, nonetheless.

I was in the US when this occurred. My aunt notified my about this as she was driving by and asked if we sold the property. I was really worried at first that maybe I forgot to pay the property taxes or something and our property got repossessed. But yeah, 100% true story. It makes me so sad because that home survived WW2 and a shady construction company managed to destroy it within a month because they were too lazy and too cheap to drive the 45 minutes to the proper disposal site. It's been a nightmare dealing with the police. Here, they would've stopped the work and probably arrested people for trespassing, damage to property, and illegal dumping. The police did NOTHING. As soon as the police left the dump trucks came back and continued dumping. They stopped once I came to Poland but who knows what's going to happen with this. All I know is that the home that I was planning on retiring in is totally ruined. I can't even sell it because no one will buy it. The property was assessed about a year ago and was worth 3.8 million zloty which is a substantial amount of money. I didn't care about that though because I was planning to live there and not sell it. Now my dream of retiring in Poland is over unless the property is either fixed or the they pay for the damage they did. I don't expect to like win the ghetto lottery - i.e. sue them for millions. However, I do want them to either fix the property (which will probably cost over $1mil dollars because of the damage) or buy the place for a fair market value. I haven't cried since my grandmother died when I was like 16 and when I saw our family home I cried. It literally looks like the place was bombed I mean they dug a hole 10 feet deep and filled it with rubble. It's been a nightmare and it's still far from being over. The sad part is I know the company that did it, I have pictures, videos, witnesses, testimonies (ironically, one of the drivers from the company is actually a family friend but of course he had no clue that this home was ours since no one lives there and he even agreed to testify in court), and despite spending thousands of dollars and 2 months out of work, I left Poland without even a complete police report because of the cops' laziness... insanity..

Cool story bro.

Jesus dude that is a crazy store - I would get your witnesses to write a statement, get a good defense lawyer, and most importantly contact the dutch embassy. That sounds like a huge pain and even worse if you left the country they may issue an international warrant. Although you never know out of sheer laziness and ineptitude.

I wonder if there is a statute of limitations in Poland? In the US for a crime like that it wouldn't go to court because it's over 2 years old. Only murder doesn't have a statute of limitations. I think you may just be wanted for questioning - I don't think you have an arrest warrant otherwise they would've picked you up already.

I'm not bsing delph... I have pictures of this I can even share - both old pictures with my parents in their 20s when they lived in that house (which was my grandmas and she gave it to me) and current pictures with the apple orchard totally dug up and the property in ruins.


It is both a civil matter and criminal matter. Criminal in the sense that the company trespassed, damaged private property, and illegally dumped. Civil in the sense that I'll have to sue them for damages to my property. First I have to get them prosecuted for the criminal so it's easier to win the civil case. It's going to be a very very long process though. I am so sick of this already I'm ready to give up on this as I simply can't afford to just keep taking off work and fly to Poland for month's and keep bugging the police to do some work. They wouldn't do anything over the phone when I called from the US so I pretty much had to go and even once I did the police didn't do anything. They didn't even make a single arrest or charge anyone - all they did was write down some info, take some statements, and that's it. It's been about 4 months since I first found out about this and still no one has been even charged or anything. If I were the owner of the company I would disband it or declare bankruptcy or something to avoid prosecution and a civil case - they certainly have enough time for it.

Sorry Adrian, but I don't believe your story.

Nothing personal, just that it's not very likely to have happened. For a start, you could simply have granted power of attorney to a lawyer who could deal with everything far more effectively than you.

Was the property not secured?

Back to the topic please

Well, this is how the beaurocracy works - not only in Poland. I feel sorry for all of that, but it is just so, that the services like police are ineffective if you don't control whether they do their job or not.

It's reprehensible what this company has done, but to win the case at the court it will definitely take much time, especially taking into account that everything is about a really big amount of money.

Adrian, sorry to read about your problems, but the fact is if you own anything in Poland you have to guard it, I worked long and hard to find all the right locals to look after things when I am not in town, Includes the local councilor, village representative, local trouble maker, Brit migrant and cctv, I also have six policemen that live within 5k, but you can't always rely on them.

It's a sad fact indeed. The attitude towards property here is shocking - communism destroyed minds as well as hearts :(

" communism destroyed minds as well as hearts" Nothing to do with communists, It's the difference between right and wrong, most of us grasp that by the age of four.

@AdrianK9, Man you think like American style in Poland.All the laws are almost there but the way they are implemented is different or bended with coveneince.I tell you almost 5 years back I was building a warehouse in Siedlce area and had problem with cops for stolen materials and blocking a lane of the highway for construction of entrance.But if you know the system sheet goes very smoothly there.It costs you, but if you play it smartly all can be easily done until unless the other party is STRONGER(in that case is better to settle).

I see you thinking again about why the other party will not declare bankruptcy, because they know when to do it and probably are working with the LOCALS:))) and that you live in America.

@dolnoslask: I agree with you,in small towns things work differently.It always is nice to take some known figures for a vacation etc:)Donate to local teams or organisations. hey in small business these things matter even in states as well.honestly,I always make sure I take cpl boxes of liq filled candies for the staff in municipal offices during Xmas .Not to mention cops would give you PBA cards to avoid minor traffic violations etc.

That's exactly what the communists did - they destroyed any sense of right/wrong when it comes to property. The sheer amount of brainwashing about 'filthy property owning capitalists' still manifests itself constantly today.

porky pok Got to say spot on good advice to anyone from outside poland, things work a bit differently here, but if you stick to the system , play the game and get involved with the people in a position of influence no problems.

Did you just admit to corruption in Poland?

Did I mention corruption?

Poland is rife with corruption - it will take a couple of years to change it - but I have faith in PiS

You have faith that a party that destroyed the independent civil service and appointed their own Party members to every single management position they could...is going to fight corruption? Are you insane? We already have endless examples of blatant corruption - so it's going to get a lot worse, not better. Heck - we even saw how they appointed a man to the Chief of Police that was under investigation for corruption. He destroyed the case against him, then immediately quit.

Gumishu, don't be so naive. If you appoint people based on their Party membership rather than their professional career and qualifications, then corruption inevitably follows. It's exactly why Putin's Russia is so deeply corrupt.


It seems that you did. Thank you :D

If a worker in the gmina office gets off her table and walks you to the cashier window and helps you pay the fee......is that called bribing by your brit ,above all Scottish standards?

In all over the civilised world its called courtsey.FOOL.

btw you call me naive and you think that civil service in Poland is independent? after eight years of PO and PSL in power and the culture of rife corruption? - sorry but you must live in some parallel universe

It was certainly more independent under PO than it is now. I don't recall PO firing internationally renowned experts and replacing them with people that don't even know anything about horses.

ok so you talk about state horse farms now? - have you heard that those renown experts did not manage to make profit out of breeding horses and signed very unfavourable contracts with private firms - you should divesify your sources a bit

Sigh. Are you honestly so naive as to believe what the PiS media tells you? PiS have been making up all sorts of stuff about people to justify things - even though it was very quickly established that all three people had something in common - PiS wanted them to indulge in corruption and they refused. If this situation was true - then we should see real proof, not just smears printed in the PiS-controlled media to justify things.

Did you not read what the President of the World Arabian Horse Organisation wrote about them?

Furthermore, if the allegations are true, then why didn't they get replaced with experts in their field and not just someone that laughably claimed that "I admire horses, but I have no practical knowledge of them"?

what i actually believe is these institutions need to be privatised - there is no need for a state owned horse farms anymore I think