Polish murderers must serve sentence in UK, family insists
PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge
28.03.2014 10:27
The family of an English woman murdered by three Poles has petitioned the UK prime minister to prevent the culprits from being transferred to serve the remainder of their sentences in Poland.
Photo: Avon and Somerset police
Catherine Wells-Burr was murdered in September 2012 in what the judge described as a “pitiless” crime aimed at securing the victim's life insurance policy.
A box containing 6500 signatures was presented to No. 10 Downing Street, the prime minister's official London address, by the Wells-Burr family on Thursday.
The victim's former boyfriend, Rafal Nowak (now 32), had taken out a joint life policy with his 23-year-old girlfriend Wells-Burr, after buying a house in Chard, Somerset.
Nowak and Wells-Burr named each other as sole beneficiaries, and Nowak stood to gain 123,000 pounds from the policy, as well as a half share in the house, which was worth 137,000 pounds.
However, as was revealed in court last year, Nowak was secretly continuing a relationship with Polish girlfriend Anna Lagwinowicz.
Nowak smothered Wells-Burr while she slept on 12 September 2012, and Lagwinowicz and her uncle Tadeusz Dmytryszyn helped dispose of the body, which was dumped in the victim's car and set alight.
All three were given sentences of 32 years in June 2013.
After it emerged that the culprits were applying to be transferred to Poland, the family began collecting signatures, amid fears that the murderers' sentences could ultimately be cut by seven years under the Polish system.
Source: BBC