A mother and her lover have been jailed for at least 30 years for murdering a four-year-old boy who the judge said was subjected to "unimaginable" acts of cruelty. Daniel Pelka was often locked in a box room and starved, tortured and beaten to death at his Coventry home last March. He was also subjected to cold water punishment. He weighed just over a stone and half when he died. His mother Magdalena Luczak, 27, and her partner Mariusz Krezolek, 34, were found guilty earlier this week. Luczak and Krezolek blamed each other for killing Daniel who died from a head injury in March 2012.
Sentencing them Judge Mrs Justice Cox said the 30-year sentence was imposed because of the 'incomprehensible brutality by both of you up to his death'.
She added that a determination to lie and to protect themselves at all costs had been the 'hallmark' of the defendants' conduct during their campaign of cruelty. During the 30-hour period in which Daniel lay dying Luczak and Krezolek chose not to call an ambulance, instead surfed the internet for a new car and tyres. They only called for help when Daniel was dead. Lisa Windridge from the Crown Prosecution Service gave her reaction outside Birmingham Crown Court.
She said: "Mariusz Krezolek and Magdalena Luczak have been sentenced for this heinous crime against this vulnerable, little four year-old boy.
"Daniel Pelka had the ultimate trust breached by his mother and her partner."
Daniel was subjected to months of abuse by Luczak and Krezolek before he died.
His natural father, Eryk Pelka, said he had no idea:
"When I got to know about everything, I had this feeling like somebody was smashing my head with a sledgehammer.
"Or like I fell down from a great height. I couldn't go to work, I couldn't do anything. It was like I wasn't really here."
At one point a doctor likened Daniel, who used to steal food from bins at school, to a concentration camp victim. Local MP Geoffrey Robinson thinks Daniel was "badly let down" by social services.
He said:
"There must be something wrong, and I think we need just, not just, an inquiry into what went wrong in this case, we need an inquiry into what's going wrong in our social services.
"They're the people failing in their job"
Simon Bass is CEO of Church's Child Protection Advisory Service. Speaking to Premier's Holly Powell-Jones during the News Hour he explains why he thinks there's been so much anger towards the authorities:
Speaking from Poland, Daniel's grandma blames authorities in Britain.
"I don't know who influenced her, I don't know what kind of man she met, what she did, what she was thinking.
"But please tell the judge that she was a really normal girl that the social services should also be held responsible because they also failed the test."
Daniel's death is the subject of a serious case review by Coventry's Safeguarding Children Board and a report is due to be published in the next six weeks. It will look at what police and social services did after staff at Daniel's school, which was Coventry Little Heath Primary School, noticed bruising on his neck and what appeared to be two black eyes. It's also emerged Krezolek had been jailed in this country three times previously but was never put on a plane back to Poland.