ROMANIANS living in Oxford have reacted angrily following comments by police about gangs of muggers in the city centre.

In an article in the Oxford Mail on Friday, Thames Valley Police said teams of “Romanian women” were coming to Oxford to beg for money.

They described them as being “dressed in fairly typical Romanian clothing, long flowing skirts, long hair and most of them tend to be quite chunky”.

But George Gazdeanu, 33, who has lived in Oxford for three-and-half years, said the comments were unfair.

He said: “These are not Romanian people the police are talking about, these are Roma gipsies.

“And they are a completely different people.”

Mr Gazdeanu, of Holt Weer Close, Cutteslowe, who works for Oxford construction company BHL Builders, said the description made the distinction obvious. He said: “Nobody in Romania wears this kind of old clothing. They are gipsy clothes, not Romanian.

“It’s completely wrong. The gipsies may be Romanian citizens, but they’re an ethnic minority and we have trouble with them in Romania, just like here.”

Mr Gazdeanu lives with a number of other Romanians, all of whom work in Oxfordshire.

Emilian Iconaru, 25, who works at the Lambert Arms hotel in Watlington with his girlfriend, said the police’s mistake was common.

Giorgian Iordache, 20, an international politics and history student at Aberystwyth University, added: “I think it is misplaced anger.

“It is not just here, it is everywhere we go. We try to be nice but people think because we are from Romania, we are gipsies. The problem is that Romanian gipsies do not integrate themselves into society.”

Mr Gazdeanu added: “I know about 50 or 60 Romanian people in Oxford and every single one of them is working.

“You will not find a Romanian on the streets begging. We’re nothing to do with these people and the police should specify who they are talking about.”

On Friday the police said organised begging gangs were preying on tourists and shoppers. They give people a sob story in broken English, claiming they need money for food and milk for their babies.

No-one from Thames Valley Police was available to comment.