Boyfriend ‘wanted to kill me’ jury told

Michelina Lewandowska, 27, has described at Leeds Crown Court how she only managed to escape after using her engagement ring to cut tape binding her.

She had heard the sound of soil being put over and around the box and did not know exactly what was outside.

Initially she said, she put two fingers through a hole and then her hand out because she was afraid her boyfriend Marcin Kasprazak might be waiting and hit her with the spade.

She then pushed her arm further out to the elbow and began to feel about.

She told the jury through a Polish interpreter she felt soil on the top of the box “but also I could then feel it in my hair and on my skin”.

Having torn more of the box away she pushed her head through and could see black sky and leaves and tried to call for help.

“I was very knackered, I was struggling, I had problems with tearing this box apart,” she said. “After some time finally I managed to get out.”

Under cross-examination by Julian Goose QC, defending Kasprazak, she agreed she had been able to breathe through two hand holes left in the box but said: “I can tell you now they were not left specially or intentionally for me to live.”

Mr Goose suggested the intention was only to scare her so she would leave Huddersfield and not return, leaving their three-year-old son to be brought up by Kasprazak and his parents.

“I’m sure he was going to kill me, that he wanted to kill me,” she said.

The jury has heard she was initially attacked with a Taser before she was bound and gagged then put in the cardboard box and driven to woodland off Woodside Road, Huddersfield, by Kasprazak and another Polish man, Patryk Borys, where the box was buried in a “shallow grave.”

Kasprazak, 26, of Penistone Road, Huddersfield and Borys, 18, of Rashcliffe Hill Road, Huddersfield both deny attempting to murder her on May 28.

The prosecution claim Kasprazak wanted to get rid of his former fiancée because he was bored with her but wanted to keep their child, Jakub.

Mr Goose said: “We accept what happened to you that day, that night was very frightening. You were made to feel scared and we don’t dispute that a Taser was used on you, that your wrists and your ankles were taped and at times, there was tape on your mouth.”

“We don’t dispute either that you were put into that box that you were taken to that scene. Let me be clear, we say that the intention was to scare you – to frighten you off, leaving Jakub behind, and it was not with the intention to kill you.”

Under cross-examination by David Hatton QC defending Borys, Miss Lewandowska said she did not blame the teenager for what happened. “I think he was deceived in the same way that I was. He was not fully aware of the things Marcin was going to do.”

The jury heard after escaping from the box she managed to stop a passing motorist.

Daniel Brockley described in a statement read to the court initially thinking the figure on the road was a drunk but stopped when he saw it was a woman in a distressed state.

“I asked her ‘what’s up’ and she replied “where am I, I need the police.”

“At this point I realised she was not drunk and this was serious,” he said.

He could see parcel tape hanging loose around her neck. She was agitated.

“She told me she had been tied up, put in a box, she had then been taken to where I had found her and that she had been buried in it.”

Mr Brockley drove her to his home and rang the police. She was covered in dirt with leaves in her hair and dirt under her finger nails.

In another statement read to the jury Pc Chris Senior said when he saw Miss Lewandowska she was struggling to walk and find her balance because of the position she had been in the box.

The trial continues tomorrow.