Ireland deported Polish repeat offender Jaroslow Kilian in December 2021 and imposed an exclusion order. He returned illegally in February 2022. Six months later, he launched a succession of unprovoked attacks on passengers travelling from Dublin toward Celbridge. By sentencing, he had 27 Irish convictions.
The attacks
On 21 August 2022, Kilian boarded a C4 bus at Aston Quay. He slapped and punched one passenger, punched another down the stairs and kicked Danesh Ramesh in the back of the head, causing concussion and blurred vision. After the driver stopped and opened the doors, Kilian punched a woman with such force that she lost consciousness. She later described lasting PTSD and an inability to use public transport. Another man was kicked and punched after intervening when Kilian demanded phones from two girls.
When Gardaí arrived, Kilian charged officers and threatened to kill them. He gave his name as “James Bond” and his address as “The General Office, Underground”.
The record the State already knew
Kilian pleaded guilty to two counts of assault causing harm and one assault count, with three more counts taken into consideration. He had 27 Irish convictions for offences including assault, criminal damage, drugs, theft and possession of stolen property.
An earlier Court of Appeal judgment documents an aggregate eight-and-a-half-year sentence with the final two years suspended for commercial stolen-property and drug offending. In 2019 the court dismissed his appeal, describing sustained repeat criminality at a commercial level.
Deported, excluded and back
Kilian reportedly came to Ireland in 2005 and worked as a chef. His original presence as a Polish EU citizen was not shown to be unlawful. The Minister later imposed an exclusion order and Ireland deported him in December 2021. The Circuit Court found he returned illegally just two months later.
The public record does not explain his route, documents, when authorities detected the return, whether the breach was separately prosecuted or whether he was removed again after sentence. Judge Orla Crowe said: “He wasn’t supposed to be in Ireland. He shouldn’t have been on the bus.”
Mental-health context
The court heard that Kilian has schizophrenia, was seriously unwell and had difficulty maintaining medication. Judge Crowe treated this as mitigation and reduced a three-year headline sentence to two years, backdated to 27 August 2022. Diagnosis is not itself evidence of dangerousness and does not explain how a ministerial exclusion order was defeated.
Public-cost benchmark
At the Irish Prison Service’s 2024 staffed-space rate, the two-year sentence represents €198,144. Applying the same modern rate to the earlier six-and-a-half-year effective term gives €643,968: €842,112 combined. This is a scale benchmark, not historical expenditure, and excludes investigations, courts, healthcare, the first deportation and any second removal.
Chronology
- 2005: Reported arrival in Ireland.
- 2017: Effective six-and-a-half-year commercial offending sentence.
- February 2019: Sentence appeal dismissed.
- December 2021: Deported under exclusion order.
- February 2022: Returned illegally.
- 21 August 2022: Bus attacks.
- 15 June 2023: Two-year sentence imposed.
Questions the State should answer
- Through what route and identity did Kilian return?
- Was the exclusion recorded across Irish, UK and EU warning systems?
- When did authorities discover his return?
- Was the breach of exclusion prosecuted?
- Did he encounter State services before the bus attacks?
- Was he removed again after custody?
- What review followed the order’s rapid defeat?