Court told family’s killer is ‘haunted by voices’

Damian Rzeszowski, 31, is accused of murdering his wife, Izabela Rzeszowska, 30, and daughter Kinga, five, and son Kacper, two, in St Helier, Jersey, last year.

The Polish national is also accused of the murders of his wife’s father, Marek Garstka, 56, her friend, Marta De La Haye, 34, and five-year-old Julia De La Haye.

Rzeszowski has pleaded guilty to manslaughter through diminished responsibility, but the manslaughter pleas were not accepted by the Crown.

Giving evidence yesterday, consultant psychiatrist Dr Dale Harrison said when he interviewed Rzeszowski five days after the attacks on August 14 last year he found no definitive symptoms of psychosis.

But after re-examining him since he returned to Jersey after being treated in Broadmoor Hospital, he said: “For the last week he has continued to experience voices.

“These voices are related to stress he is under. His stress levels are up since leaving Broadmoor Hospital and being put in prison.”

The Royal Court in St Helier has heard Rzeszowski claims to have blacked out after cooking sausages at a barbecue at his family’s home before the attacks took place.

On the day of the attacks, he and his family had returned from a holiday to Poland.

His marriage was under “great strain” after his wife admitted to a two-month affair and he’d had a one-night stand to get back at her, and had visited a prostitute during their trip to his country.

After returning, he got into a argument with his wife over leaving the children on their own in the house.

However, the prosecution say that, rather than flying into an instant rage, he waited an hour and three-quarters before butchering his family and their visitors, starting with his father-in-law and ending with his wife, whom he chased into the bathroom where she climbed out of the window, and then into the street where he stabbed her again in front of neighbours.

The trial resumes today.