'If you don't go I will stab you' - Polish student recalls being stabbed during suspected racist attack in Telford
A student who was stabbed in the neck with a broken bottle in a suspected race attack has spoken of his horrific ordeal.
Bartosz Milewski, 21, and his friends were set upon by three men in a park, in St Matthews Road, Donnington, Telford, last week.
West Mercia Police has launched an investigation but so far no arrests have been made.
Mr Milewski, who is Polish, has been left unable to return to university or drive as a result of the assault, which is being treated as a racially aggravated hate crime by officers.
Mr Milewski, who just days before the attack had returned from teaching children at a US summer camp, said he was talking with friends when a group of men approached them shortly before 1am. He said: "They had almost gone past but then they heard we were talking in Polish and they turned around. They started swearing at us and asking why we were talking in Polish, saying it's not our country and we should go.
"I said 'we've been living here for a long time and there's no reason to be like that'. We were already leaving but one of the guys grabbed a bottle.
"He smashed it and said, 'if you don't go I will stab you'. I said he didn't need to do that, we were going. He pushed me and I pushed him back, then he stabbed me."
Mr Milewski suffered a gash to his neck, which later required 13 stitches. He had also started to walk away towards a friend's house when the gang removed planks of wood from a nearby fence to use as weapons. He said: "Then one of the men hit the back of my head with a piece of wood like it was a baseball bat and I fell down. The way they behaved was so aggressive." The attackers fled when they saw the approaching blue lights of an ambulance.
Mr Milewski had been planning to return to Portsmouth University, where he is studying sports development, but has been unable to leave home because of his injuries.
He said: "I was 14 when I left Poland and now I'm 21, England feels like home. I wasn't in England for the Brexit, I don't really know what changed."
The offenders are described as three white men in their 20s, one of whom was about 6ft tall, slim, clean shaven and wearing a grey hooded top with grey tracksuit bottoms.
