Mother and boyfriend guilty of murdering 15-year-old son after months of torture

22 July 2022, 15:26

A mother has been found guilty of murdering her teenage son who she tortured in a campaign of horrific abuse.

Sebastian Kalinowski, 15, died of an infection after suffering a number of rib fractures following attacks by his mother Agnieszka Kalinowska and her partner Andrzej Latoszewski.

The teenager was smacked with a bed slat, whipped with an extension cable and stabbed with a needle by the vile pair.

Kalinowska, 35, was found guilty of murder on Friday, after a trial at Leeds Crown Court where she denied the charge. She sobbed as her guilty verdict was read out.

She was convicted alongside 38-year-old Latoszewski, who had also denied murder.

Jurors heard how Sebastian was found unconscious after enduring serious injuries at home in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, in August last year.

They were shown awful footage of him suffering attacks just hours before he died, with Latoszewski having set up a camera system in the house that captured it.

Sebastian Kalinowski died last August from complications arising from the multiple serious injuries he sustained at the hands of his mother, Agniewska Kalinowska, and her bodybuilder boyfriend Andresz Latoszewski, who was involved in martial arts.

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He endured weeks of "cruel and systematic assaults, ill treatment and neglect", the Crown Prosecution Service said. The boy had been in the UK for less than a year and was described by teachers as a model pupil who was meticulous, punctual and well-mannered.

They would insult and humiliate him, and Latoszewski insisted Sebastian called him "Mr" or "Sir". Latoszewski had tried to claim Sebastian either drowned in the bath, fell from a tree or got into a fight.

Messages sent between the couple included a chilling request from Kalinowska for Latoszewski to "beat the **** out of the w****", and in another exchange Latoszewski told her "I do not torture him anymore… because he is not managing", to which Kalinowska replied with a thumbs up.

Two family members spoke about how "punishments" were given by the couple to Sebastian.

Kalinowska had tried to claim she was "petrified" when asked why she had not stopped the abuse.

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She claimed Latoszewski had the idea to start punishing Sebastian, and that he set up an app to record her conversations through her phone.

She said he had lied about Sebastian when he told his school the boy was "naughty and lying" and that instead Sebastian was a good person and an "ordinary teenager".

"I failed as a mother. I should have died instead of him," she told the court previously.

After being shown a clip of her kicking at Sebastian while Latoszewski hit him, she said her partner had "told me to do something… he said I was just standing there and as his mother I should have intervened".

She called her son "foul and disgusting names", which she claimed was because "those were the words Andrzej used to address me".

Senior Crown prosecutor Daniel Lee said after the verdicts: "Agniewska Kalinowska and Andresz Latoszewski were the two people Sebastian should have been able to trust the most in the world but instead of loving, protecting and caring for Sebastian, they subjected him to an utterly horrific and prolonged campaign of extreme physical and mental abuse.

"In short, they tortured him. After suffering many months of mental and physical torment, Sebastian died of the multiple injuries he sustained at their hands.

“Both defendants lied and offered cowardly and implausible explanations for the extent of Sebastian's injuries, and attempted to pass it off as 'appropriate discipline'.

"It is impossible to contemplate the agony and fear this young boy experienced, inflicted in his own home, by his supposed care-givers."