A man who burst into his former parents-in-law’s home with a masked gang, restrained them with cable ties and a sock taped into one victim’s mouth, and drove them to a remote rural location in a desperate attempt to win back his estranged wife has been jailed for nearly four years.
Klodjan Xhepa, 28, admitted two charges of kidnap at Ipswich Crown Court and was sentenced to two concurrent terms of three years and ten months — a total of 46 months. Judge David Pugh described the six-hour ordeal he inflicted on Lukasz Saczkowski and Miroslaw Chojnacka as “terrifying.”
Prosecutor Juliet Donovan told the court that a gang of masked men, brandishing pistols, burst into the bedroom of Mr Saczkowski’s home in Sudbury, Suffolk, at around 8am on 27 March last year while he was asleep. He was restrained with cable ties and a sock was forced into his mouth and held in place with tape. When his wife arrived home shortly afterward, she too was seized, tied up and placed on the bed beside him. Mr Saczkowski managed to spit out the sock once his wife was caught.
Xhepa then demanded to know the whereabouts of his estranged wife Roksana and their children before forcing the couple into a car and driving them to a remote location near Great Waldingfield. There, Mrs Chojnacka was made to call her daughter, and a desperate three-hour conversation followed in which Xhepa repeatedly pleaded with Roksana to return home with their children before the ordeal finally ended.
Five further charges were allowed to lie on file, including controlling or coercive behaviour toward Roksana and threats to kill four people, including his former parents-in-law. The coercive behaviour allegations included repeated assaults against Roksana, controlling her finances and spending, preventing her from leaving the house, regular threats of violence, verbal abuse and controlling her contact with friends.
Judge Pugh told the court that Roksana and the couple’s children had since fled the country entirely because of Xhepa’s controlling behaviour and were now living in Poland.
Defending, Rory Keen said his client — whose address was given as St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex — had not used violence against his victims and at no point threatened to shoot them. He described Xhepa’s actions as stemming from desperation and amounting to a “wildly inappropriate and misconceived plan” to reunite his family.
Alongside his prison sentence, Xhepa was banned from contacting his wife and children for five years.
