Sebastian Kalinowski: Couple beat boy to death at Huddersfield home, court told

Warning: This report contains descriptions of alleged child abuse.

A schoolboy was murdered by his mother and her partner after being systematically subjected to weeks of punishment beatings, a court has heard.

Fifteen-year-old Sebastian Kalinowski died on 13 August last year at his home in Leeds Road, Huddersfield, after being used as a "human punchbag", a jury at Leeds Crown Court was told.

He had multiple injuries, including open wounds to his buttocks and multiple untreated rib fractures, which the prosecution said caused the complications which led to his death.

On the first day of the trial, Jason Pitter QC, prosecuting, told the court that the injuries had been inflicted by Sebastian's mother, Agnieszka Kalinowska, 35, and her partner, Andrezej Latoszewski, 36.

Mr Pitter said Sebastian suffered "weeks if not months of terrible, cruel, systematic assaults and ill treatment, neglect and abuse".

'No exaggeration to describe it as torture'

He told the jury: "As an absolute minimum, you may conclude, [the defendants] have failed to provide [the] basics. However, we accept that that grotesquely understates it.

"Because instead, in those weeks they had assaulted and abused him - both mentally and physically in such a way that it would be no exaggeration to describe it as torture."

The court heard Sebastian had been in England for less than a year after moving from his home country of Poland, where he lived with his biological father.

He attended North Huddersfield Trust school, where he was described as a "model pupil", the court heard.

But his mother and step-father claimed he needed punishment for lying and playing truant from school.

Mr Pitter said: "The punishments, by any stretch of the imagination, were cruel and became increasingly severe and violent over time."

The couple installed CCTV cameras in their house to monitor the teenager when they left him at home as punishment.

But Mr Pitter said: "In a twist, it is that system that has recorded the abuse he had to endure at the hands of the defendants."

Punishment drills

The jury was shown footage of various incidents which the prosecution said showed Sebastian being beaten up. In one case he was repeatedly hit with a slipper before his mother punched him in the face.

Mr Pitter said: "His reaction to being beaten by his mother is telling and sad – he seemed to display no emotion or overt reaction, but merely put his headphones back on and reverted to looking at or typing on his laptop."

On another occasion, he was punched and stamped on by Latoszewski, the jury were told. There were other incidents when Latoszewski – a steroid user, martial artist and body builder – used a bed slat to beat him on his buttocks.

Sebastian was often made to perform "drills", including hundreds of press-ups and sit-ups, as punishment, even when he was physically weak. On occasion he was "whipped" with an extension cable during the exercises, the court was told.

In another incident, weeks before Sebastian's death, Latoszewski was filmed working out, using a punch bag in his garden. But the jury was then shown CCTV footage which the prosecution said showed him attacking the teenager.

Mr Pitter said: "That aggression was repeated later but using instead Sebastian as his human punchbag, you may feel."

On the day Sebastian died, emergency services were called, but by the time they arrived he had already been unconscious for two-and-a-half hours. He was no longer breathing.

Examination of his body uncovered bruising to his buttocks, head, jaw and abdomen, arms and legs as well as multiple rib fractures.

Messages later found on the defendants' phones described Sebastian in a "derogatory and inhuman way", Mr Pitter said.

Kalinowska and Latoszewski deny murder and the trial continues.

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