Staff at a weekly newspaper in Wiltshire recorded a new milestone in last week’s edition – their first article in Polish.

The Wiltshire Times featured a police appeal in Polish alongside a similar one in English after a Polish man was assaulted last week.

The paper reported the assault in last week’s paper after the 23-year-old was beaten up so badly that he was taken to hospital with a fractured skull.

Police arrested a 19-year-old Trowbridge man on suspicion of actual bodily harm within minutes.

It was later found that the Polish man only had cuts and bruises and he discharged himself from hospital without leaving his name, address or contact details.

Following up the story for this week’s paper, chief reporter Charley Morgan called the police to see if they had managed to track down the injured Pole.

Charley said: “While I was talking to the police officer on the case she mentioned whether it was possible to put an appeal in Polish in the paper for the man to come forward.

“Unless he did they would only be able to charge the 19-year-old with a public order offence, not ABH. I thought it would be a great idea – we have a lot of Polish workers in Trowbridge. I had a chat with my editor and news editor and arranged to have the appeal translated for the paper.”

The two stories ran on page seven with a separate Polish headline to attract attention.

The paper also printed a special billboard in Polish to go outside a local newsagent frequented by many migrant workers.

Charley added: “The page looked really good and hopefully someone will know the man and get in touch with the police so they can pursue the case against the 19-year-old.

“And we might have attracted a few more Polish readers to the paper too.”

There are believed to be around 2,000 Poles in Trowbridge, mainly doing agency work in construction, factories and warehouses.