Pelka Case: Mum 'Gave Salt To Thirsty Boy'

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Pelka Case: Mum 'Gave Salt To Thirsty Boy'

A court hears four-year-old Daniel Pelka, who was allegedly starved for months, made his mother angry by asking for food.

6:36pm UK, Monday 08 July 2013

Daniel was physically punished for stealing food, jurors were told

By Lisa Dowd, Midlands Correspondent

A man accused of murdering his stepson has told a court there was no deliberate campaign to starve the child as punishment.

Daniel Pelka was allegedly beaten to death and deprived of food for months before he died at home in Coventry last March.

His mother Magdelena Luczak and her partner Mariusz Krezolek deny murdering the four-year-old and causing or allowing his death.

Krezolek told Birmingham Crown Court that Daniel was fed the same amount of food as his sibling.

He said: "Magda would call and say he had his cereal and five pieces of toast and 10 minutes later on the way to school he would cry for food again."

Krezolek said it made Luczak angry.

"She would take a belt and hit him," he said, on Daniel's back, bottom and arms.

He admitted hitting Daniel on his bottom too, but said he did not "beat him up the way Magda would".

Speaking though a Polish interpreter, he told jurors Luczak had asked him to secure Daniel's bedroom so he could not get out at night and steal food.

He said her view was that "Daniel should feel a man's hand. It's the man that should be punishing".

Krezolek said that as punishment for Daniel's bad behaviour, and when he stole food from school, he made Daniel kneel for up to 20 minutes, run round the living room, and do 10 minutes of squats.

"I did it because I was stupid and listened to Magda," he said.

Krezolek also said that when Daniel cried for a drink, Luczak gave him salt so "he would feel even more thirsty".

"I had never seen a mother giving salt to a child out of spite yet Magda thought he'd be alright," he said.

He admitted giving Daniel around a "teaspoonful" of salt on two occasions. But after the second time, when Daniel was sick, he said he never did it again.

Krezolek said he noticed Daniel getting thinner in the February, before his death the following month, but "when I saw him in the morgue he looked somehow smaller, he had a big head".

Earlier, Krezolek, who described Daniel as a "cheeky boy" but "completely normal", said his relationship with Luczak had been "wonderful" at first, and he got on well with Daniel and his sibling.

But he said Luczak became "sick" with jealousy and smashed up four or five computers to stop him contacting female friends in Poland.

He said he did not like her smoking marijuana and drinking heavily, and denied that he had ever been violent towards her.

He told the court that Luczak once chased him around a room with two knives.

The trial continues.