A convicted criminal who admitted killing a middle-aged man he had recently moved in with after twice assaulting the victim before preventing a witness from calling an ambulance has been jailed for six and a half years.
Damian Szatkowski (38) of Peachville, Kilshane, Dublin 11, pleaded guilty last October to the manslaughter of Marcel Kusenda, in Newbridge, Co Kildare on or about March 8th, 2023. He has 61 previous convictions.
The Director of Public Prosecutions had argued before the Central Criminal Court that the offence lay in the “high culpability zone”, meriting a headline sentence of 10 to 15 years.
The court previously heard that Mr Kusenda (48) was also subject to a sexual assault by a different man not before the court as he lay seriously injured in his room.
Mr Kusenda was found lying slumped on some furniture wrapped in a blanket with facial injuries at a property in Piercetown, Newbridge after an ambulance crew was dispatched to the house at around lunchtime on March 8th, 2023.
He was alive but unresponsive and was brought to Naas General Hospital where tests revealed a large subdural hematoma – a blood clot in the brain. Mr Kusenda’s condition deteriorated and he was pronounced dead on March 10th having never regained consciousness.
Sentencing Szatkowski on Monday, Justice Eileen Creedon said this had been a “serious assault” and the defendant’s failure to call for assistance, along with the fact that he had prevented another man from doing so, were aggravating factors in the case.
She noted evidence had been given that the incident involved two episodes of violence, one at around 5pm and another later that same evening when Szatkowski had returned to the house.
The court previously heard that Mr Kusenda – who was originally from Slovakia but had been resident in Ireland for two decades – had been living at the Newbridge house for eight years and Szatkowski, a Polish national, had moved in shortly before the fatal incident.
During the course of the investigation, gardaí spoke to the deceased man’s son, Marcel Kusenda Jnr, who had voice messages on his phone from which it appeared Mr Kusenda Snr had been the subject of an assault.
Gardaí also spoke to a witness, Marytn Najder, who was in the property on the evening in question and said Szatkowski became “aggressive” after Mr Kusenda Snr had “patted the hair” of the defendant’s girlfriend. Mr Najder told gardaí the deceased had been “joking and messing” but there had been a sharp exchange of words and things got “pretty heated”.
Mr Najder left the house but subsequently got a call from the defendant’s girlfriend, who told him Szatkowski had struck Mr Kusenda Snr two times in the nose. He returned to the property where he found Mr Kusenda Snr injured and “covered in blood”.
The court heard there was some allegation that the deceased “may have touched” a child “inappropriately”.
However, gardaí confirmed no complaint had been made in relation to the incident. The child was subsequently interviewed and there was “nothing disclosed in relation to any inappropriate behaviour” on the part of Mr Kusenda Snr.
Szatkowski left the house but returned at around 9pm when he entered Mr Kusenda Snr’s room and struck him twice in the face with what was described as “two quick punches to his nose” while the injured party was sitting on the floor.
As the deceased tried to get up off the ground, Szatkowski then kicked him three more times in the face near the nose, the court heard.
Mr Kusenda Snr appeared to be unconscious at this point and was left in the bedroom for a number of hours.
Mr Najder went into the injured party’s room and could see he was still bleeding and at one-point corrected Mr Kusenda Snr’s head position because “his breathing was strange”. He was afraid to call for an ambulance because the accused man was very angry and threatened him not to do so.
At some point in the evening a third individual, an Irish man, arrived at the house and he and Szatkowski cleared Mr Kusenda Snr’s belongings. Later that night, the Irish man approached the injured party while he was unconscious, inserted a pen into his anus and said: “How do you feel right now? This is for that little [child].”
A post mortem conducted by State pathologist Dr Heidi Okkers noted the deceased’s injuries were in keeping with several blows to the head and face and the cause of death was complications of blunt force head injury with no other contributory factors.
The court heard Szatkowski is unemployed and has been living in Ireland for over 15 years. He has 61 previous convictions, including those for Section 2 assault, criminal damage and possession of offensive weapons.
Imposing sentence today, Ms Justice Creedon noted that following the first assault, Szatkowski and another man were going in and out of the deceased’s room taking out his belongings. She said the defendant had prevented Mr Najder from calling assistance and had threatened him if he did so.
She said the court accepted that there was no history of violence between the parties and there was no weapon used but said there had been a degree of “pre-meditation” and “callousness” in that Szatkowski returned to the house following the first assault and had prevented Mr Najder from calling emergency services.
The judge set a headline sentence of 10 years before reducing this to six-and-a-half years after taking mitigation into account, including Szatkowski’s plea of guilty to manslaughter and his letter of apology. She backdated this to when Szatkowski first went into custody in April 2023.
In a victim impact statement read to the court at a previous sentencing hearing, Mr Kusenda Snr’s son said his father did not deserve to be treated in “such a cruel and brutal way”.
He said his 20-year-old sister had been left “sad” and “depressed” by their father’s death. “We try to comfort each other but it is very difficult,” he said, adding they would “carry this trauma for all of our lives”.
Mr Kusenda Snr’s sisters Renata Struharova and Miroslava Taziarova also provided a statement outlining how they had heard the news their sibling was seriously ill in hospital two days before they were due to fly to Ireland for a holiday with their brother.
