An evil mum and her steroid-abusing lover who beat and tortured her 15-year-old son to death have become the first UK couple to be jailed for life on television.
Agnieszka Kalinowska, 35, and Andrezej Latoszewski, 38, subjected Sebastian Kalinowski to "horrific" abuse for months before he died in August 2021. He was beaten with a bed slat, whipped with an extension cable and stabbed with one of Latoszewski's hypodermic needles during weeks of "cruel assaults and abuse".
Martial arts experts fanatic and bodybuilder Latoszewski used defenceless Sebastian as a human punch bag, at times halting the beatings to pose and admire his physique. On one occasion, Latoszewski whipped Sebastian 59 times with an electrical cable in his bedroom and then forced him to clean up the blood on the mattress.
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On the day of his death, they left Sebastian "dead or dying" for more than an hour before calling an ambulance after finding him unconscious. Much of the abuse was captured on a CCTV system in the family home, in Huddersfield, which had been installed to "monitor and control" Sebastian.
Jurors watched hours of "horrifying" footage showing Sebastian being hit, kicked and forced to carry out exercises while carrying weights in between beatings. Sebastian died from organ failure as a result of sepsis, brought on by complications of 23 untreated broken ribs.
The court heard it was "only by good luck" that Sebastian had not succumbed to his injuries sooner. The couple denied murder but were found guilty in July after a six-week trial at Leeds Crown Court.
On Wednesday they appeared before the same court for sentencing, where they were jailed for life for murdering Sebastian. They will both serve a minimum of 39 years.
Passing sentence, Justice Christina Lambert KC branded Latoszewski a "bully" and told Kalinowska she did not care about Sebastian even after his death. Addressing Latoszewski, the judge said: "Like all bullies, unable to maintain respect in another way you sought to intimidate Sebastian who was weaker than you and in Sebastian you found a way.
"CCTV footage shows you flying into a rage, pacing the room, with a grimace on your face as you scream at Sebastian."
Addressing Kalinowska, she referenced a letter she sent to her lover while on remand and said: "You told him you would marry him. Your only real worry was about what had happened to your cat after your arrest. In this very long letter there was not one word about your son Sebastian, his death and the loss of his life."
The court heard Sebastian was born in Poland and lived with his mother for four years before Kalinowska moved to England, where she met Latoszewski. Sebastian lived with his dad until 2020, who contacted Kalinowska to say Sebastian had been getting into trouble.
Kalinowska went to Poland to bring him to England, but by Christmas that year the beatings had began. In January 2021, Latoszewski recorded footage of himself shouting at and swearing at Sebastian.
Off camera, the judge said, Latoszewski repeatedly beat him with the broken spindle from the staircase. In a victim impact statement read out to the court, Sebastian's father Jacek Kalinowski said part of him died when his son did.
He said: "You turned every day of Sebastian's life into a nightmare and committed monstrosities s that are truly mind-boggling. I will never comprehend how much hatred it takes to do such thing. Why did you hate him to such a degree you let that psychopath treat him like that?"
Referring to Latoszewski, a bodybuilder and steroid user, Mr Kallinowski added: "You made my son a punchbag for yourself. You were merciless and were destroyed him every single day. You were a truly brutal tyrant. Why do you hate him so much?"
Speaking after sentencing, detective chief inspector Tony Nicholson of West Yorkshire Police said it was the most harrowing case he'd have experienced his 29 year career.
He said: “Sebastian was a child who could not have been more isolated and appears to have suffered the most appalling abuse in silence, and even come to see it as normal. Latoszewski and Kalinowska abused this boy in a manner which was wicked and evil, and we may never know why they chose to act in this inhuman way.
“We recovered overwhelming evidence of their attacks and of them discussing them in phone messages, and I can say that footage we have seen of this abuse has upset experienced detectives. The injuries inflicted on poor Sebastian were carried out in a way where they would not be visible and it is clear both parties acted in a way to hide evidence of their assaults on him.
“They both now will have many years in prison to reflect on why they chose to inflict such pain, suffering, and eventually death, on an innocent boy.”
The sentencing was the third that TV cameras were allowed to film the judge's sentences remarks after a landmark ruling earlier this year.
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