Ipswich: Man On Station Roof Jailed

4 September 2013, 18:16

The man who brought hundreds of trains across East Anglia to a standstill has been jailed.

26-year-old Mantas Badauskas, from Lithuania, climbed onto the roof of Ipswich train station during the morning rush hour and refused to come down for 7 hours.

At Ipswich Crown Court today Badauskas was sentenced to 16 months in prison, for what the judge described as 'absurd and attention seeking'.

The court heart he had only been in the country about a week when he found himself in Ipswich without any money or belongings.

He claims he wanted to return to Lithuania but couldn't get a ticket, so climbed onto the roof to try to get a better view of where he was.

His actions resulted in a  seven hour stand off with almost 70 police, fire crews and paramedics, 76 trains cancelled and 40 thousand passengers stranded on trains or platforms across the region.

Heart's been told the operation cost emergency services in excess of £4,000 and Greater Anglia has paid out more than £55,000 pounds in compensation to passengers. They have also had to pay £300,000 to freight companies affected.

At this stage the bill stands at more than £360,000 but the train company has told Heart they are expecting that figure to rise dramatically.