Innocently running after the mother who would murder him: Haunting final image of boy, four, starved and beaten to death by parents as authorities looked the other way

A series of appalling blunders by police, social workers, teachers and NHS staff allowed a boy of four to be starved, tortured and beaten to death by his mother and her lover.

Daniel Pelka resembled a ‘concentration camp victim’ and weighed less than a toddler when he died following an ‘incomprehensible’ campaign of cruelty carried out by the evil pair.

‘Callous and wretched’ Magdalena Luczak, 27, and stepfather Mariusz Krezolek, 34, imprisoned the little boy in a locked box room, force-fed him salt and held him underwater in a bath until he was unconscious.
Final hours: Daniel (circled in green) is seen leaving Little Heath Primary School in Coventry with his mother (circled in yellow) just 36 hours before he died
Mother who would murder him: Daniel, aged four, runs after his mother Mariusz Krezolek hours before he was killed
Murdered schoolboy: Daniel Pelka, aged four, died severely malnourished after being starved in the months leading up to his death by his mother and stepfather.
Starved, beaten and left to die. Daniel Pelka’s final movements

Guilty: Luczak,  and Krezolek, right, who were found guilty of murder. They will be sentenced tomorrow

They also hoodwinked the authorities who then missed crucial opportunities to save the boy who had been starved for six months.

Yesterday neither Luczak nor Krezolek showed any emotion as the jury found them guilty of murdering the boy.

In the months before his murder Daniel Pelka arrived at school with black eyes and a broken arm but chances to save him were still missed.

The four-year-old, who was systematically starved and beaten in a case of ‘incomprehensible’ cruelty, was even described as a ‘bag of bones’ and caught stealing food from bins and other pupils.

Just days before he died he was described as ‘looking like an old man’ with sunken eyes and appeared to be ‘sad, desperate and lonely’ as he ate dried beans in a sand-pit at school.

But despite his intolerable suffering he still died at the hands of his mother and step-father, Magdalena Luczak and Mariusz Krezolek, under the noses of the authorities.

The schoolboy was left to die in his unheated ‘cell’ home for around 33 hours after suffering a fatal head injury at his Coventry home on March 1 last year.

His parents’ trial, which ended in a guilty verdict for both today, heard how 22 days before he was beaten to death Daniel was seen by a community paediatrician because he was so emaciated.

The appointment with Dr Supratik Chakraborthy was just one of a string of attempts to help Daniel, who was at the centre of a police inquiry after suffering a broken arm 14 months before his death.

During his last two months of life, Daniel was also sent to school with two black eyes and observed by his class teacher to have bruising on his neck.


Prison: The tiny unfurnished box room that Daniel was locked in for hours on end. The urine-room had only a mattress. The door had been tampered with so Daniel could not get out
Filthy: A dirty mattress Daniel Pelka was forced to sleep on during his confinement in the box room in his home in Coventry

Murdered: Daniel Pelka who died last year after months of abuse at the hands of his mother and stepfather



Horrific: A graphic issued by police which shows the catalogue of injuries on Daniel Pelka’s body