Mother and stepfather lose appeals over Daniel Pelka murder

The mother and stepfather of murdered four-year-old Daniel Pelka – who died after sustained and “incomprehensible” cruelty at their hands – have lost challenges at the Court of Appeal.

Three judges in London rejected a bid by Mariusz Krezolek to appeal against his murder conviction – describing his application as “unarguable”.

They also threw out challenges by Krezolek, 35, and Daniel’s mother Magdelena Luczak, 29, against their “excessive” sentences.

The pair were sentenced to life in August last year and ordered to serve at least 30 years each behind bars before they can apply for parole.

A judge at Birmingham Crown Court said that “unimaginable acts of cruelty and brutality” were inflicted on the child.

Lady Justice Hallett, announcing the decision of the court today, said the trial judge was “fully entitled to treat this as one of the most serious offences of murder to come before the courts”.

She described the story of Daniel’s suffering and death as “heartbreaking”.

The pair, originally from Poland, were convicted of murder after blaming each other for the head injury which ultimately caused Daniel’s death.

Daniel weighed just 1st 9lbs when he died in March 2012.

During his final months, he was denied food, forced to perform punishment exercises, confined in a locked box room, poisoned with salt, and subjected to water torture.

When sentencing the couple, from Coventry, trial judge Mrs Justice Cox told them: “Time and again, knowing exactly what you were doing to him, both of you concealed your conduct from the authorities by a series of deliberate and elaborate lies, designed to put them off the scent and to prevent them discovering Daniel’s true plight.”

Accepting that Daniel appeared to be a healthy and well cared for little boy when he started school in September 2011, the judge told his killers: ”Over the months that followed, he was subjected by both of you to deliberate, escalating and incomprehensible brutality, which continued right up to his death.

”For reasons which are unfathomable, Daniel became a target for derision, abuse and systematic cruelty, designed to cause him significant mental and physical suffering. The scale of his suffering was truly horrific.”

The medical evidence given during the case, the judge said, showed that Daniel’s emaciation was regarded by experts as ”unprecedented” in Britain.

Lady Justice Hallett, sitting with Mr Justice Popplewell and Mr Justice Edis, said Daniel was subjected in the months before his death to a campaign of escalating cruelty including starvation.

“That anyone could treat a child this way is incomprehensible. That his mother and stepfather could is beyond any belief and understanding.”

The aggravating features were numerous while the mitigation was limited.

“In the context of weeks, if not months, of sustained cruelty designed to cause suffering to a four-year-old child, culminating in that child’s death, in our judgment, a lack of intention to kill adds very little by way of mitigation.”

It was not a case where a child died as a result of one blow, because of an unexpected burst of anger by an uncaring parent, but where there was at least one final fatal bow to an already “dreadfully abused and neglected child”.

Even after that blow was administered, help was not sought until it was far too late, said the judge.

“Both applicants were plainly far more concerned about their own future and their own responsibility than about getting help to a dying child.

“This was an extraordinarily serious case of its type and, in our view, clearly justified the impositon of a very long minimum term.

“That is what they received, and we do not find that the sentence was in any way excessive.”

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