Polish national says offer from British stag group in Benidorm was like winning the lottery

A homeless man living in Benidorm who was allegedly paid €100 (£89) by a British stag group to have the groom’s name tattooed on his forehead has said he accepted the offer out of desperation.



Tomek, 34, who met the group in the Spanish resort in May, said he was paid to get the words “Jamie Blake, North Shields, NE28” inked on his skin.

“When you live on the street, you’re hungry and you need to drink, that kind of money is like winning the lottery,” he told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.

“There weren’t 30 people there, like the British papers have said. There was just one person, who was as drunk as I was, laughing and taking photos. When I couldn’t take it any more because the part they were tattooing was just skin and bone, he looked at me and just said: ‘Go.’”

The Polish national said he could not understand why the tattooist had not refused the job when he saw how drunk he was. The pain, he added, had been excruciating.

“If it hurt me so much and I was totally drunk, I can’t imagine how much it would hurt someone who was sober,” he said.

Tomek told the paper he had worked in the kitchen of a four-star hotel in Poland and walked all the way to Spain after splitting up with his girlfriend shortly before they were due to get married.

He said he had been robbed a few days before running into the stag party, and was reluctant to go to the police.

“I thought the police would laugh at me and I didn’t think what they’d done to me was a crime, but now I know it was,” he said.

Social services and the Benidorm British Business Association have raised €3,000 for Tomek and he has been offered medical treatment and told to stop drinking. The matter has also been reported to the police.

He told El Mundo that he hoped some good would come of his experience. “I might even open a restaurant serving traditional Polish food. Who knows? After what’s happened to me, I’m never going to give up,” he said.

Jamie Blake, 37, told the Newcastle Evening Chronicle he had nothing to do with the tattoo and claimed Tomek was not homeless.

“I got drunk and was asked to leave the bar,” he said. “I was never in the tattoo parlour and as far as I know, he was not paid any money.”