By Samantha Jones-
A mother and her partner have been found guilty of the murder of 15-year-old Sebastian Kalinowski, in a particularly disturbing case f callousness towards a child
Agnieszka Kalinowska, 35, and Andrzej Latoszewski, 38, subjected the schoolboy to an unbearable level of torture and bullying for months before he died in Huddersfield in August 2021.
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Sebastian (pictured)was beaten with a bed slat, whipped with an extension cable and stabbed with a needle, jurors heard.
The couple had denied murder but were found guilty after a six-week trial at Leeds Crown Court.
Sebastian died in hospital on 13 August of an infection caused by “untreated complications of multiple rib fractures”, after weeks of what prosecutors described as “cruel assaults and abuse”.
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A jury at Leeds crown court heard that Kalinowski was beaten with a bed slat, whipped with an extension cable and stabbed with a needle.
Teaching staff had told the court he was “a pleasant and well-mannered boy” who “was observed to be quiet and timid, and at times appeared sad”.
After the couple were arrested in connection with Sebastian’s death, police seized CCTV cameras from their house in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, which prosecutors said had been partly used to “monitor and exert control over Sebastian remotely”.
Sebastian was also verbally abused by the couple and ordered to address Latoszewski as “Mister” or “Sir”.
The pair had denied murder and Agnieszka Kalinowska cried loudly in the dock when the verdicts were delivered on Friday after the jury had been deliberating for about three and a half hours. Latoszewski showed no emotion as he stared at the floor.
IMAGE ;WEST YORKSHIRE POLICEAgnieszka Kalinowska and Andrzej Latoszewski are both due to be sentenced in October
The teenager arrived in the UK from Poland in October 2020 to live with his mother and her long-term partner, the court heard.
Over the following months the teenager was repeatedly beaten by the pair and subjected to cruel and humiliating punishments anytime they considered him to have misbehaved.
The pair themselves described their actions in text messages to each other as “torture”.
In one 30-minute clip played to the jury he is seen hitting the boy more than 100 times, pausing at one stage to wipe the sweat from his face, while Kalinowska watched TV and ate toast.
On the day before Sebastian’s death, Latoszewski was seen on CCTV forcing food and drink into the boy’s mouth and stabbing him a number of times with a needle in the groin and thigh.
Prosecutors said he was “apparently laughing whilst he did so” before Kalinowska took over stabbing the boy with the needle.
The court heard that on the day he died Latoszewski waited more than two hours after finding him unconscious before calling for an ambulance. He later claimed Sebastian had drowned in the bath and that his injuries had been the result of a fall from a tree or a fight.
The jury took just three hours and 39 minutes before returning unanimous verdicts against both defendants.
After the verdicts were delivered Kalinowska began crying in the dock.
Daniel Lee from the Crown Prosecution Service said it was “impossible to contemplate the agony and fear this young boy experienced, inflicted in his own home, by his supposed care-givers”.
Mrs Justice Lambert said the jury’s dedication to the case had been “truly extraordinary”, as she adjourned sentencing until October.
“You have had to endure quite horrifying footage of Sebastian suffering great pain over a long period of time and then his death,” she said.
“I take the view, and I don’t think there’ll be anyone in this court who would disagree, you have gone beyond the call of duty. Therefore I take this step of discharging you from all jury service in the future.”
Det Ch Insp Tony Nicholson, who led the investigation, said the jury had sat through some “very harrowing evidence in what has been a lengthy and difficult court process”.
“Detectives and partners in the CPS firmly believe that the charge of murder truly reflected the physical abuse Latoszewski and Kalinowska inflicted on Sebastian, and we are pleased they have been found guilty of this offence,” he said.
“We await their sentencing and our thoughts are with Sebastian’s relatives in Poland.”
Tracy Brabin, Mayor of West Yorkshire, welcomed the verdict and said it was a “deeply upsetting and truly shocking” case of abuse.
“I will never understand how someone could treat any child, let alone their own, with such abhorrent cruelty and contempt,” she added.
Helen Westerman, from the NSPCC, said Sebastian’s mother and her partner were the “very people who should have been nurturing him”.
“People will be asking how any child in our society could suffer such an appalling campaign of abuse without anyone intervening.
“That is why it is so important that no stone is left unturned in the review looking into the circumstances around his death,” she said.
A spokesperson for Kirklees Safeguarding Children Partnership said a review of the case had been commissioned, adding that “the outcome will be published in as timely a manner as possible”.
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