A woman and her partner have been sentenced to 39 years in prison for the “horrific” murder of 15-year-old Sebastian Kalinowski. Agnieszka Kalinowska, 36, and Andrzej Latoszewski, 38, were convicted at Leeds Crown Court in July of murdering Kalinowska’s son at their Huddersfield home in a prolonged campaign of physical abuse that amounted to torture.
Sebastian died after contracting sepsis from injuries from hundreds of punches, kicks, whippings and stabbings over months. Although it was not a life sentence, the judge, Mrs Justice Lambert, said the sentence “may be equivalent” as the couple would be in their 70s when they would be eligible for release.
Lambert also gave each of them a nine-year sentence for child brutality to run together with their murder sentences. Sentencing Latoszewski, she said: “There were times when I thought you lost consciousness that you were actually hitting a person and not your sack. Video footage captured by cameras Latoszewski installed in their home to control Sebastian showed a prolonged beating, with the teenager crying and screaming. Sebastian was also stabbed several times with a needle by Latoszewski and Kalinowska.
The boy was forced to do exercises like push-ups and sit facing the wall for hours. The footage also captured Latoszewski using steroids, walking around the house and looking at himself in the mirror between attacks while Kalinowska sat in front of the television.
Other evidence presented to the court included text messages where Kalinowska asked Latoszewski to come back and “beat up” Sebastian. The pair also examined how to torture him without leaving scars on his body. He died of sepsis on August 13, 2021, caused by 23 broken ribs, after Kalinowska and Latoszewski waited two and a half hours for an ambulance to be called after finding the boy unconscious. The pathologist found 81 injuries on Sebastian’s body.
Dr Michael Parsons said some of his injuries would normally only occur in car accident victims. The evidence in the trial was so troubling that the jurors were dismissed from jury service for life by a judge who said their service was “beyond the call of duty.” Following the sentencing, the lead investigator in the case, DCI Tony Nicholson of West Yorkshire Police, described it as “without a doubt the most harrowing case I have experienced in my 29 years as a police officer”.
He added: “Latoszewski and Kalinowska abused this boy in a way that was mean and evil, and we may never know why they chose to act in this inhumane way.” Staff at Sebastian’s school described the teenager, who came to the UK in 2020 from Poland, as a “lovely boy” who was “shy”, “quiet” and “always pleasant”.
