Killer gets life term for 'sadistic' sex attack after prison release

A "damaged and dangerous" killer has been handed a life term for a "sadistic" sexual attack months after being released from prison.

Michal Podlaszczyk served 12-and-a-half years for the equivalent of manslaughter in his native Poland in 2001 when he was 18.

He has now been jailed for a minimum of seven-and-a-half years after subjecting a 55-year-old woman to a savage 30-minute attack as she walked to the bus station through Bede Park in Leicester in the morning of October 29 last year.

Jailing him, Philip Head said a life sentence was "inescapably necessary".

He said: "Her ordeal, and I use that word ordeal deliberately, it was a terrifying ordeal lasting 30 minutes.

"Against her shouted protests, you dragged her to a more secluded area where you sexually assaulted her."

Leicester Crown Court heard Podlaszczyk, 33, punched the woman to the ground, raped her and stole the £1.15 in her purse, telling the victim he needed the money for beer.

While he was carrying out the attack, he asked the victim for her Pin number, which he used to steal £20 from her account after taking her bank card.

The judge said the attack was "sadistic", adding the defendant took "great pleasure from it by humiliating her by some disgusting actions".

He said: "I have no hesitation in saying your level of dangerousness is such that the public require protection from you."

Prosecuting, Jim Thomas said the defendant said the word "love" in English and was "commanding" his victim to say the same as he raped her during the attack at 7.10am.

He said: "The defendant was a stranger to (the victim). He has never met her before.

"Nothing about the person caused, at that stage, (the victim to feel) a threat of violence until she was suddenly and unexpectedly violently punched to the face by the defendant."

This caused her to have a denture knocked out of her mouth, the court heard.

Mr Thomas said: "He was demanding during the sexual assault to know her Pin number for her bank card.

"This was the beginning of the process of ultimately robbing her and stealing from her.

"She was in such fear, she told him the correct number for her cards."

As well as taking £1.15 in cash, the defendant withdrew £20 from the victim's bank account using the card and told her not to tell the police.

Mr Thomas said the victim was left with injuries to her lips and face, and was left "distraught" by the attack.

Reading from a victim impact statement, he said: "She is frightened to go out and is constantly worried when there's a knock at the door."

He said the victim is frightened whenever she hears men speaking in public and was unable to afford dental treatment for her injuries.

Podlaszczyk was released from prison in Poland in July 2015 and settled in the UK in August last year.

The court heard the defendant claimed he was "in a mess" when the attack happened and said the victim consented to sex and regarded the items he stole as "gifts" from her.

Mitigating, Ramya Nagesh said: "It was not a planned attack. Very clearly, it was opportunistic."

Podlaszczyk, of no fixed abode, admitted counts including three charges of rape, sexual assault, assault occasioning actual bodily harm. He showed no emotion as he was sent down.