24 Jun 2011

Pole who killed pensioner after warrant failings faces jail

A Polish fugitive who killed a pensioner in her own home after police failed to check his identity has been convicted of manslaughter. Channel 4 News learns new procedures have now been put in place.

Eveline Kelmenson

A Polish robber who killed an 83-year-old woman after being arrested and released twice by British police, despite being on a European Arrest Warrant, is facing years behind bars.

Details of police failings emerged as Kuba Dlugosz, 33, was convicted of the manslaughter of Eveline Kelmenson in her £1 million north London home.

Dlugosz broke into the five-bedroom house in Stamford Hill on 27 November, 2008.

He and an accomplice tied the pensioner up while they ransacked her house, before leaving her bound and gagged to die from hypothermia.

It emerged later that Dlugosz had gone on the run after being jailed for two similar robberies in Poland.

A European Arrest Warrant was issued and the fugitive was arrested twice on suspicion of burglary in London in the weeks before the killing.

But he gave police a false name and they failed to check his double-check his identity with the Polish authorities, releasing him on bail and leaving him free to kill.

The Met Police told Channel 4 News new procedures have now been put in place to make sure a similar incident cannot happen again.

The MPS has introduced a new system to ensure that all arresting officers now conduct these enquiries through the relevant national channels. Met Police

At the time there was no expectation that police would routinely check the identities of foreign criminals, but the Met Police say a protocol is now in place that should prevent another case like this.

A Met spokesman said: “Since the death of Eveline Kelmenson in 2009 there has been a change in European and UK law which now requires all police services to conduct enquiries with the relevant authorities in European Union countries when a European national is arrested.

“The MPS has introduced a new system to ensure that all arresting officers now conduct these enquiries through the relevant national channels. The process, which was not in place at the time of Miss Kelmenson’s death, seeks to establish their true identity and ascertain any offences committed in their country of origin.”

Originally known as Pitor Bucgoki, Dlugosz was jailed in Poland in 2000 for breaking into schools in his home town, Bialystok, and tying up the caretakers in an almost identical fashion to the attack on Miss Kelmenson. Fortunately, the victims survived.

He fled to the UK using a false name in 2007 while on weekend leave from jail.

In October 2008 he broke into a bakery near Manor House tube station, just a few streets away from Miss Kelmenson’s house, leaving DNA evidence that would eventually lead to his conviction.

On November 9, 2008, he was arrested trying to break into an elderly woman’s home in Eastern Avenue, Ilford. He was charged with criminal damage and bailed.

Four days later Dlugosz was arrested again as he tried to force open a door in Vartry Road, Tottenham. But police released him for a second time.

Less than three weeks later he forced his way into Miss Kelmenson’s house through the cellar.

They left her on her bedroom floor in her nightclothes, bound and gagged with silver tape, while they stripped the house of everything of value, including the pensioner’s gold necklace and her mother’s wedding ring.

Over the hours and possibly the days to come she died, I am sorry to say, a slow death from hypothermia. Jonathan Laidlaw QC

Prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw QC said: “When they were done the defendants left the house by the front door, pulled that to behind them so it was locked from the outside.

“Miss Kelmenson was therefore left still bound and gagged on the floor of her bedroom. It was winter and it was cold and because she was alone in the house, unless she could free herself of the bindings, she had no means of escape or of alerting others to her plight.

“Over the hours and possibly the days to come she died, I am sorry to say, a slow death from hypothermia.”

Police found the body five weeks later after a niece became concerned.

Dlugosz was arrested in July last year and DNA evidence helped convict him of manslaughter, burglary and robbery by an Old Bailey jury. He was remanded in custody until sentencing on July 22.

The jury failed to reach a decision on charges against a second defendant, Szymon Wyrostek, 26, of Tottenham, north London, who will now face a retrial.

Miss Kelmenson, who had worked as a secretary, was the descendant of Russian Jewish emigres who arrived in London in the late 1800s. She had no children but had shared the house with her brother and sister. When they died she was left living alone.