Convicted criminal stole ring from Ipswich jeweller shortly after arriving in UK

Rolanders Saulys, who stole ring from Carat's jewellers (Image: Archant)

Rolanders Saulys, of Kingston Road, Ipswich, is the latest foreign criminal to have committed further offences in the county after entering the UK without the authorities being aware of their criminal past.

In addition to his drug dealing conviction in Lithuania he also had other convictions for dishonesty.

At Saulys’ first hearing on the theft charge prosecutor Wayne Ablett told Ipswich magistrates the 19-year-old had only been in the UK for a short while before stealing the £809 ring from Carats in the Buttermarket.

Saulys had asked to see a tray of rings. He then grabbed one and ran out of the shop.

He was apprehended by two members of the public after being chased down the road by the shop’s female manager.

The have-a-go heroes detained Saulys outside Costa Coffee pinning him to the ground until police arrived.

However the ring Saulys stole was never recovered.

The theft occurred after he had gone into Carats at around 4.30pm on December 7.

Saulys originally declined legal representation at his first hearing before the magistrates’ court on December 8.

Although he had an interpreter with him during the video link from Martlesham police investigation centre he continually spoke over the magistrates who were unable to get a plea to the charges from him.

They entered a not guilty plea on Saulys’ behalf after having to mute the sound on the video link.

The magistrates were told Saulys was convicted of drug dealing in Lithuania in 2013 and had been jailed for 12 months. He also had six other previous convictions for dishonesty.

His case was committed to Ipswich Crown Court where he subsequently pleaded guilty to theft and failing to provide a drug sample when requested after his arrest.

He was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment.

Due to freedom of movement across the European Union it is not possible for the UK authorities to know of someone’s criminal past when they enter the country.

This is because there is no standard system across all the member states which can be checked.

It is only when a foreign national is arrested on suspicion of a crime that Suffolk Constabulary is able to ask Interpol to check his or her previous convictions outside of the UK.

Over the past four years East of England MEP Vicky Ford and Ipswich MP Ben Gummer have been trying to get a system in place within the EU which would enable any criminal history of person entering the country to be checked.

Last October Suffolk’s Police and Crime Commissioner Tim Passmore demanded EU border control reforms after a convicted paedophile banned from the UK was jailed again for returning to work with teenagers.

Juan Guerra Landazuri, of Mill Road Drive, Purdis Farm, Ipswich, was among a growing number of foreign-national sex offenders, robbers, burglars and petty criminals to have committed crimes in Suffolk.

The convicted child sex offender was imprisoned for a second time after lying to get a job looking after vulnerable teenagers and adults with learning difficulties in Ipswich.

Police discovered the 44-year-old’s criminal background after an allegation of sexual assault on a female was made against him.

Landazuri was jailed for 26 months by Ipswich Crown Court. He had previously been imprisoned for four years at Kingston Crown Court in 2002 for child sex offences and was deported to Ecuador in 2005, but came back to England via Spain in 2013.

At the time Mr Passmore said: “I am absolutely horrified. It beggars belief that yet again we have a foreign national – this time with dual citizenship – with a serious criminal record of a predatory nature against young people has gained entry into the UK despite having a previous conviction and being deported from the country.

“What on earth are we doing? This should never happen. We now need, without delay, proper reform of border controls within the European Union so that those with such poisonous track records of criminal behaviour never gain access to our country.”

Landazuri’s conviction came less than two weeks after a Romanian fugitive agreed to extradition back to his homeland after being arrested on suspicion of shoplifting in Ipswich.

The 19-year-old was found to be the subject of a European Arrest Warrant, when he was detained after trying to steal a pair of shoes from TK Maxx in the Buttermarket shopping centre.

The teenager, who had been living in Anglesea Road, Ipswich, was wanted for aggravated theft following a shop break-in in Romania in 2013.

Earlier in 2015 shoplifter Rolands Marcinkevics, 32, of Chevallier Street, Ipswich, was deported after his criminal record in Latvia and Sweden was discovered. He had racked up 14 convictions for 27 offences in the UK.

Among the other foreign criminals or suspects to have committed crimes in Suffolk was Adrian Udrea, 39, who was jailed for 16 years last November for raping an 81-year-old woman after breaking into her home in the Felixstowe area. He had previously been jailed for burglary in Romania.

In January 2012 Polish fugitive Ireneusz Melaniuk was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering Bury St Edmunds jeweller Peter Avis.

Melaniuk, 28, was a convicted robber and burglar who arrived in England while on the run after being given day release from a Polish jail and failing to return.

In 2014 Uldys Radionov, 21, of Riverside Road, Ipswich, who had been convicted of rape as a 16-year-old in Latvia in 2009, was jailed for 32 weeks.

He had knocked a woman unconscious after trying to remove her trousers during a drinking session.

Radionov, 21, fled Latvia after being released on licence while serving a sentence for aggravated rape.

Among the other foreign criminals found to be leaving in Suffolk was Lithuanian rapist, Gintautas Lipkinas, after he fled from Ipswich while on bail for an unrelated allegation in 2012

Four months previously another Lithuanian living in Ipswich, was told he must sign the sex offenders’ register following the discovery of his conviction for rape in Hamburg in 2006.