Grzegorz Szal

Grezgorz Szal and Patryk Pachecka were convicted of the murder of Grzegorz Pietrycki based on DNA evidence and CCTV footage of the two men leaving the flat. Another co-defendant, Mr. Grzegorz Gryzbek, was not subject to criminal charges as the jury failed to agree upon a verdict for him. In December 2017, Mr. Szal and Mr. Pachecka were sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 18 years on a majority verdict (10-2). Due to failures to properly analyse the crime scene, it was wrongly believed that the victim was fatally stabbed in the front bedroom before the victim managed to leave the property, go round the corner and collapse. Moreover, the Prosecution failed to discover the previous convictions of Mr. Gryzbek, which misled the jury into thinking that he was a man of good character.

New evidence by forensic experts and pathologists established that the victim had received a fatal knife injury to the neck, but that the attack had actually occurred a few streets away from the flat in an alleyway. Also, CCTV footage showed that the victim was followed by Mr. Gryzbek upon leaving the flat, while Patryk and Grzegorz went in the other direction. The conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal and the jury returned a not-guilty verdict at the retrial in November 2021.