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A 60-year-old farmer drove his tractor onto a newly laid asphalt road in the southern Polish city of Gliwice and using a plough, churned up around 200 metres of the surface.
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According to the Gliwice Municipal Police Headquarters, the man claimed the road belonged to him and that the works being carried out on it were illegal. He is also said to have announced that he would damage the surface again.
On Sunday, the Gliwice-West District Prosecutor’s Office charged the 60-year-old with damaging property of significant value. Investigators applied to the Gliwice District Court for the man to be placed in pre-trial detention for three months, arguing that the offence carries a sentence of between one and 10 years in prison.
The court ordered his detention later that same day.
“The court justified the pre-trial detention by the severe custodial sentence the suspect realistically faces and by the possibility that he might take unlawful steps to avoid it,” the court said.
Claimed ownership of road
According to information from the Gliwice Regional Prosecutor’s Office, the man admitted ploughing up the freshly laid asphalt. During questioning he repeated the argument he had previously made to the police, insisting that the land on which the road runs is his property.
However, documents gathered by investigators show that the land belongs to the local authority.
“The high degree of the suspect’s guilt is demonstrated by the fact that he acted in a planned and deliberate manner, using agricultural machinery to destroy the road which ensured he achieved his intended aim. The high level of social harm caused by the alleged offence is shown by the fact that residents of neighbouring houses had been waiting for many years for the repair and construction of the road that the suspect destroyed and the consequences of this act affect all residents of Gliwice, who will now have to bear the considerable costs of rebuilding the road,” the Gliwice Regional Prosecutor’s Office said.
Police officers established that the 60-year-old was sober at the time of his arrest. His tractor was towed to a police car park and it also emerged that the vehicle did not have the mandatory third-party liability insurance.
Massive losses
The mayor of Gliwice, Katarzyna Kuczyńska-Budka, has also commented on the case. She said that, according to estimates by the Municipal Roads Authority, the losses amount to around 400,000 zloty (€93,056).
She explained that not only the asphalt layer but also the road base had been destroyed. The mayor posted a recording on social media showing the moment when the farmer uses his tractor to plough up the freshly laid road surface. She added that this is not the first time the man is alleged to have caused damage to public property.
The Municipal Roads Authority (ZDM) also issued a statement responding to claims that Rybacka Street in the district of Ostropa was partly owned by the city and partly by the farmer.
“The road is entirely owned by the City of Gliwice. It is not a private road, nor a road of which any part belongs to a private individual. It is also untrue to suggest that the lack of consent from a private owner has had any bearing on the renovation or the laying of the asphalt surface,” ZDM stressed.
