A mother accused of torturing her son to death along with her partner sobbed when she told a court she “should have died instead of him”.
Sebastian Kalinowski, 15, died last August of an infection caused by “multiple rib fractures.”
Prosecutors say he died after weeks of ‘cruel assault and abuse’ at the hands of his mother and stepfather at their home in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.
Sebastian had been in the UK for less than a year when he died after moving from Poland to live with his mother Agnieszka Kalinowska and her partner Andrzej Latoszewski, both 36.
Leeds Crown Court judges have heard Sebastian was beaten with a slatted bed, beaten with an extension cord and forced to do ‘humiliating’ exercises in what prosecutors say amounted to a campaign of ‘torture’.
Sebastian Kalinowski died when he was 15 years old from an infection caused by rib fractures. The prosecution said it came after a ‘campaign of abuse’
Prosecutors say the abuse was captured by the couple on CCTV cameras they had installed to remotely “monitor” Sebastian in their home.
Jurors have heard the footage, seized from the house after Sebastian’s death, which shows him being ‘mainly and very severely attacked by Mr Latoszewski, but involving his mother on several occasions’ .
Agnieszka Kalinowska, 36, denied manslaughter but admitted she ‘failed as a mother’
Court heard Andrzej Latoszewski, 36, was “controlling” and abusive, and that he violently assaulted Sebastian several times
The prosecution alleges that both defendants were guilty of murder because “both acted together to inflict the fatal injuries on Sebastian as a course of action.”
On Wednesday, Ms Kalinowska told the court she was “petrified and afraid” of Mr Latoszewski, and that it was a “controlling relationship.”
Mrs. Kalinowska and Mr. Latoszewski both deny the murder of Sebastian.
Latoszewski, 36, admitted manslaughter on the second day of the trial, while both defendants pleaded guilty to child abuse a day later.
Ms Kalinowska also denies causing or allowing the death of a child.
Through a Polish interpreter, Mrs. Kalinowska told the court that she admitted to being cruel to Sebastian, but pleaded not guilty to manslaughter for causing none of his rib injuries, nor did she help or want Latoszewski to break her son’s ribs.
When asked by her lawyer Leonard Smith QC why she was cruel to Sebastian, Ms. Kalinowska said, “Because I listened to Andrzej’s words.”
When asked why she saw her partner “inflict the most cruel beatings on your own son” without intervening, she replied, “Because I was petrified and afraid.”
When Mr. Smith said she was thinking of herself instead of her son, she agreed, “Yes. He was just an ordinary teenager. I failed as a mother. I should have died instead of him.’
She described Sebastian as a “good kid” and said Latoszewski’s claims to his school that he was “naughty and lying” were untrue.
When asked whose decision it was to punish Sebastian, she replied, “Andrzej’s, because he was the head of the house and he decided everything.”
The court was shown a CCTV clip of Ms Kalinowska kicking Sebastian out while Mr Latoszewski was beating him.
She said, ‘Andrzej told me to do something. He said I was just standing there and that as his mother I should have intervened.’
When asked why she used her weight on Sebastian’s leg during another clip where he was attacked by Mr. Latoszewski, Ms. Kalinowska replied: ‘Because Andrzej said that, he told me to hold Sebastian and because I was terrified I just did. what Andrzej said. to do with me.’
Ms Kalinowska admitted calling Sebastian “dirty and disgusting names” and said it was “because I was used to those words, because those were the words Andrzej used to address me, so that kind of language was used in the house.” ‘.
Asked for a recording of her yelling at Sebastian, she said that Mr. Latoszewski had installed an app to “record every conversation on my phone” and that she “wanted Andrzej to know that I was disciplining Sebastian the way he expected me to.” ‘.
As Sebastian’s sentences grew heavier, Mr. Smith asked, “Did you ever think this has gone too far, that I have to save my child?” Mrs. Kalinowska was in tears when she replied, ‘No.’
The court heard that Ms Kalinowska had Sebastian when she was 19 years old, and that he had lived with her until the age of four, when she moved to the UK ‘to earn money to improve Sebastian’s life’.
Sebastian then went to live with his biological father, the court heard.
Ms Kalinowska said she had met Mr Latoszewski through friends and that he offered her ‘this better life in the UK’.
She told the court that they started a relationship after she moved to England, but it was “not a good relationship” and that after about two years, Mr. Latoszewski “started to control me and then beat me up.”
Ms Kalinowska said she brought Sebastian to the UK in 2020 ‘because I wanted him with me’. The process continues.