Boy, four, 'whose parents starved him to death suffered incomprehensible cruelty and looked like concentration camp victim'

Daniel Pelka was allegedly deliberately starved over several months

Schoolboy's mother and stepfather came to UK from Poland in 2006

Court hears Daniel was 'imprisoned' in a bedroom and force-fed salt

Magdelena Luczak and Mariusz Krezolek deny murdering him in 2012



A boy of four looked like a 'concentration camp victim' after being locked in a 'cell' and starved to death by his parents, a court heard yesterday.

Daniel Pelka was also allegedly force-fed salt as a punishment for taking food from the fridge during months of 'incomprehensible cruelty' at the hands of mother Magdelena Luczak and stepfather Marius Krezolek, the jury was told.

The schoolboy, who was so hungry he took to stealing classmates' lunches and eating out of bins, died despite contact with a paediatrician and at least two home visits from school staff.

Dead: Daniel Pelka, whose physical condition was likened by a doctor to that of a concentration camp victim, was allegedly deliberately starved over several months, Birmingham Crown Court heard

Jurors were told Daniel weighed just 1st 7lb when he was discovered by paramedics, 15lb below the average weight for a child of his age. Despite attempts to resuscitate him, he was pronounced dead in hospital on March 3 last year.

Prosecutor Jonas Hankin QC said the state of the boy's tiny body had left even experts in child death shocked.

He said: 'Daniel was subjected to a campaign of incomprehensible and escalating cruelty. His body was described as “shockingly thin” by doctors and an expert in child deaths said a lay person would compare it to a child starving in a concentration camp in the Second World War. When doctors tried to measure his BMI (body mass index) it was too low to be measured on the scale.'

Mr Hankin said text messages between Luczak, 27, and Krezolek, 33, provided compelling evidence of the Polish couple's guilt. In one, Luczak told her lover: 'We will deal with (Daniel) after school. He won't see grub at all.' In another, she wrote: 'He's temporarily unconscious as I nearly drowned him. I am having some quiet time.'

A few minutes later she added: 'If I hear him whine when he wakes up then he is going back to the bath. I didn't let the water out.'

Others discussed putting Daniel in his room – a box room akin to a home-made prison cell with no door handle on the inside – to get some 'peace'.

Daniel Pelka's teachers said the schoolboy looked emaciated in the weeks leading up to his death

One message, sent the day before Daniel's death, Krezolek wrote: 'He'll get over it by tomorrow.

'There's no point to call the ambulance as that will cause proper problems.'

Prosecutors believe Daniel, who they say died after a 'violent assault' at home, was unconscious when the text was sent.

The couple dialled 999 and Daniel, who was unresponsive, was taken to University Hospital in Coventry, where doctors noticed bruising on his forehead, shoulder and back.

A post-mortem examination revealed 24 distinct areas of injury to the head, body and all four limbs, and higher than normal sodium levels in his system.

When police searched the family home in Coventry, they discovered a 'stained mattress' wedged in a store cupboard.

Mr Hankin added: 'Upstairs there was no sign of a bedroom for the victim. The carpet was damp to the touch and the door was adapted so that when shut, it could not be opened from the inside.

'They realised the room had been used as a cell for him.'

The court heard a school welfare officer had been sent to the family home in December 2011, after Daniel's attendance rate dropped to 63 per cent.

The court heard when he was in school, Daniel would often be found with food stuffed in his pockets or down his trousers.

A school nurse visited the home in the same month. His mother claimed he had an excessive appetite, but an appointment was made for him to see a paediatrician.