The heartbreaking case of Daniel Pelka

0:01 On the morning of the 3rd of March 2012, a 999 call was made by a mother who reported that her four-year-old son was not breathing and is unresponsive. When paramedics arrive, they are completely shocked by what they find. This little boy, he's dead and he's been dead a while. He's cold to touch, he is severely underway and covered head to toe in bruises. Paramedics, well, they try to do what they can and they rush this little boy to the University Hospital in Coventry, but sadly he is pronounced dead at 3:50 a.m. This is the heartbreaking case of Daniel Palker.

0:44 Hello everyone, and welcome back to Unthinkable, a True Crime Podcast. And it's another one of these cases, I'm afraid, today. I was gonna do something a bit different after last week's um when I was talking about Arthur's story, but um Daniel's name popped up when I was researching something else, and it kind of stopped me in my tracks. I remember the case when it happened, it was huge. Uh, there was public outcry, another child dying at the hands of their caregivers. But what makes this case so infuriating is Daniel's suffering was just literally happening in front of the people around him.

1:27 He was severely malnourished, he was always covered in bruises, and he was in school in front of his teachers, and no one stepped in. It's just it's just beyond belief. Now, if you don't know this case, you'll see as we look at what happened, there are countless times Daniel could have been saved. Social services were involved, the teachers were involved, healthcare professionals were involved, and any one of these could and should have stepped in. Okay, right, so let's get started. So, Daniel Pelker, so he was born on the 15th of July 2007 in Coventry to parents Magdalena Lukzak and Eric Pelker.

2:16 His parents were Polish and they had moved to the UK at the end of 2005. The couple had a daughter, so Daniel had an old sister, and she was around two years older than Arthur. So on the 16th of December 2007, the police are called to the home for a domestic violence incident. The couple were both drunk, and Magdalena was threatening Eric with a knife. They were arrested, although later released without charge. Now, because there are young children in the home, the police inform Coventry Social Care, which is known as Children Learning and Young People's Directorate, so C L Y P. So they notify Daniel's health visitor.

3:04 So they're already on the radar. And this is a volatile house. There are numerous calls to the police, usually involving the couple being drunk and accusing each other of assaulting each other. Now, in one report on the 6th of April 2008, Daniel's mother claimed that Daniel's father had Daniel and was refusing to give him back. When the police arrive, Magdalena is drunk and Eric is calm and sober. The police report this again to the CYLP, who then did an assessment, and it was found that the parents have acknowledged that a continued pattern of domestic abuse would present a significant risk of harm to the children, and that the parents had implemented strategies to minimize the risk.

3:54 And then the case was closed. But the cycle continued. Now, Daniel's parents they split up towards the end of 2008. Magdalena is actually pregnant with her third child at this time, but sadly she miscarriages. It's reported that the couple split up due to Magdalena having an affair. And Daniel's father, well, he actually moves back to Poland. And Daniel, he was just over a year old at the time. And his sister was three and a half. Daniel's father, there isn't really any contact between Daniel's father and his children.

4:35 It is said that Magdalena made it very difficult for him, but there isn't any evidence of any kind of phone call or any attempts to visit or anything. So he's just kind of disappeared. Now, Magdalena, she moves another man in. We don't know his name, but there are more reports to police about domestic violence. One of them, Magdalena, is crying in the garden with the children. The police arrive and find the man just wandering around the house with a knife. So he gets arrested and is charged. And then this goes on and on, and it's constant, repeat, repeat reports of domestic violence.

5:16 It's utter chaos in that house. It's drunk-fueled, violent arguments constantly. Now, that relationship ends, and in 2010, Magdalena meets Marius Kreselec and he moves in quite quickly, and straight away off we go again. Almost as soon as he moves in, the police are called. And you guessed it on reports of domestic violence. Now, there's a lot of alcohol and drugs being consumed by the couple in the property. It's safe to say that they are both violent alcoholics. But Kreselec, well, he turns his violent nature towards Daniel.

6:04 We don't know if this violence towards Daniel started straight away, but on the 6th of January 2011, Daniel is taken to AE with a broken arm, and there is bruising on his shoulder and on his stomach. Now, this is explained away, saying that Daniel had been playing with his sister and he'd fallen off the back of the sofa. Now the hospital are suspicious and the police are informed are informed, and when they go around in the house, Daniel's sister she confirms Magdalena's account and she says that she was happy in the home and the case was eventually closed.

6:43 So we jump to the 14th of September 2011, and Daniel starts school. He attends Little Heath Primary School, and Daniel he can't speak very good English and he does find it quite hard to communicate. But the staff commented that Daniel appeared happy and enthusiastic. However, quite soon Daniel is becoming more and more absent, and on the days when he is in school, he's often late, and staff start noticing that he seems to have quite an obsession over food, and Daniel appears really hungry, and he's solely focusing on what he can eat.

7:24 And he starts to take food from other children's lunchboxes. The school nurse makes a referral to the community pediatrician, and there is a home visit to Daniel's home. Daniel's mother states that Daniel had an excessive appetite and that he was a secret eater. And she also says he has learning disabilities, which he doesn't. And you know, if someone is a secret eater and they are constantly consuming food, well they're going to put on weight, aren't they? But Daniel, he's losing weight. So the pediatrician she tries to arrange some follow-up appointments, but Magdalena just disengages from the service completely.

8:09 She fails to attend any of the scheduled appointments, or she cancels them. So when Daniel returns to school after the Christmas break, he has lost so much weight, he's so thin, and the deputy head teacher is actually concerned that Daniel isn't growing, and this would indicate he's not getting enough nutrients for his body to even grow. They're more and more concerned over Daniel's obsession with food. And, you know, he has an obsession with food, but he's losing weight. His teachers reported that Daniel had started scavenging in bins, um, eating any discarded food that he could find.

8:54 He would eat um like apple cores, pear cores, trying to get like yogurt out of an empty yogurt pot. Um, and he'd even tried eating beans that the class had planted as an experiment. So he tried eating the little bean that that they put in the soil. Like he's starving. And like, I don't how can they not see? When the deputy head finally speaks to Daniel's mother, she says he gets up in the night and raids the fridge. And then she says he's often binges and then is sick or has diarrhea. She actually instructs the school not to let him have any other food than what's in his lunchbox.

9:37 Now, in Daniel's lunchbox, there is half a sandwich and a few loose crisps. So that's all he has for the whole day of school. Now, staff at the school they unbelievably agree, and all the lunch boxes get locked away, and any food that Daniel finds is taken from him even when he's visibly upset. So you can imagine he finds something to eat, finally anything, and then it gets taken off him.

10:08 I mean, they said Daniel has lost so much weight. One teacher commented that Daniel's school uniform was hanging off him. As I said earlier, Daniel finds it hard to communicate, so he's not telling anyone what's happening. His sole focus is to stop the hunger pains and to he'll eat anything. But his teachers, regardless of how thin he is, they believe his mother and withhold any food he finds. There's also occasions between December 2011 and February 2012 when Daniel was seen at school with facial injuries and he had fingerprint bruises from his ear going down to his shoulder.

10:53 And this is recorded in the concerns book. Um, and as we know with fingertip bruising, this is a red flag because that's a hand has done that. That's what fingerprint bruising is. But it's recorded, but again, nothing is done about it. And another occasion, poor Daniel, he comes to school with two black eyes and a severe scratch on his nose. And this is apparently reported to the head teacher, but it's not documented. The bruise on Daniel's forehead, a large lump on the left side of his head that was the size of a two pence piece.

11:34 Daniel had been asked about these injuries, but he he didn't answer. He just looked down at the floor. And then, you know, they left it. So here we have a severely underweight child who has stopped growing where he's so malnourished, and now he's got black eyes, scratches and bruises all over him, and still nothing is clicking. Anyone who saw a child in this strait, surely you'd scoop them up and take them to a safe place, wouldn't you? It makes me so angry. Like these these are the teachers are trained to spot the signs of abuse.

12:11 Sorry. Right. So let's talk about what was going on in Daniel's home. Now, a lot of what we know is through text messages between Magdalena and Kreselec. They were shown in court. I'll talk about the messages a bit later. But so Daniel was largely confined to a room, a very small box room. This room had no furniture at all. There was no curtains, there was no photos, there was no toys, there was just a very thin mattress on the floor, and that was all there was. The door handle had been removed from the inside, so he couldn't get out, and heartbreakingly, after Daniel died, his little fingerprints were found around where the door handle would have been, so he was trying to get out, and even the view from the keyhole was blocked.

13:05 We don't know how long each day Daniel would be locked in this room, but he couldn't use the toilet whilst he was in there. So his room became his toilet. When Daniel's mattress was discovered, they'd hidden it, but when they when it was found after he died, it was soaked through in human waste. And so was the threadbare carpet that was on the floor. Now, a lot of what we do know was actually described in court by Daniel's six-year-old sister. And this child, bless her, she tried to help Daniel.

13:40 She said she would hide food and sneak it to Daniel when like no one was around, and she said she used to try and help clean him up. I think she's six years old. She knew that Daniel would be punished if she was caught giving him food, so she had to do it in secret. Like it's brave, isn't it? And she even she used to hit out at Kresalek more than once to try and stop him hitting her brother. Or or just try it try and stop Daniel being forced to sit in freezing water in the bath. Like, how brave is this child?

14:16 She's sick, she's amazing. So she was trying to help him. Krezelec would beat Daniel, and these were horrific beatings for anyone. But Daniel's a tiny four-year-old child. Krezalek is a big man, he's stocky, he's strong, he's a giant compared to this poor child. We know that there was water torture. Magdalena, in one of her messages to Krezalek, read that Daniel was temporarily unconscious because she nearly drowned him. And then she says she would not be hitting him. But when Daniel wakes up, that she'd take him back to the bath as she has not let out the water yet.

15:00 Daniel's sister also talked about the water torture in court. So Daniel, he was starved, um, he wasn't given any water, and on one occasion, Daniel had asked for a drink, and his mother instead she poured salt down his throat. So instead of giving this poor little boy a drink, you can imagine a four-year-old child asking for a drink because they're thirsty, and their mother pours salt down his throat. Magdalena admitted that uh Kreselec would punish Daniel if he found out he'd have food at school, and he'd punish him by feeding him salt until he vomited up the food that he had had at school.

15:51 Daniel, he is severely neglected. He's abused, he's beaten, he's starved, he's covered in injuries, and he's sent to school like this. And even though the teachers have concerns, there is no intervention. Can you imagine what this boy is going through? He lives in a house with violent alcoholics who appear to direct all their anger towards him. So we know Daniel has an older sister, he also has a younger sister, but it appears that um they don't experience the violence or neglect that Daniel does.

16:27 And although they're growing up in a terribly chaotic and volatile home, they are witnessing the insane violence towards their brother. They're going to be traumatized, aren't they? Daniel's sister told the court that her mother had told her to tell anyone that asked that Daniel ate more than her at home and that he needed to be taken to a psychiatrist because he was retarded. Right, I just wanted to talk a bit about the text messages between Magdalena and Kreselec. These text messages were used in court as evidence against the pair.

17:03 So they text frequently about putting Daniel in the room to get some peace. And that room is that tiny, squalid box room with all the ore in. So this is a punishment. For Daniel, he gets locked in that room. And a text I mentioned earlier, I'm just going to read it word for word. Um, so Magdalena texts, well, he's temporarily unconscious because I nearly drowned him. He's already in bed. I'm having some quiet time. Followed by I won't be hitting him, but if I hear him when he wakes up, then I'm then he's going back to the bathtub.

17:45 I didn't let the water out. Another text read, we will deal with Rudy. So Rudy is what they called Daniel, I don't know why. Um we will deal with Rudy after school. He won't be seeing any grub tonight. Another text, take him to the room and leave him there. Another sent by Daniel's mother says, When you are going to the shop, can you remove Rudy slash Daniel's door handle to stop his sister opening the door for him? Another read, buy salt as a must. We know salt, you know, we know that Daniel was force-fed salt.

18:28 Um, another one from Magdalena Tekreselec. You were striking him by the hand. He's saying that it hurts in the lady's presence. I've told him if he doesn't talk, I'll give him a chocolate bar. Now, I don't know the context behind this text, but it seems like Daniel was saying his hands hurt. And that this was a his from his latest punishment, and she's bribing him with a chocolate bar to stay quiet. And for a four-year-old baby who's starving, if you offer them a chocolate bar, I mean he's a young child, he's he can't see the the the bigger picture, and he's hungry, so any food you offer them, he's he's gonna take.

19:12 Now, this striking on Daniel's hands have left an injury, as another text reads, one of his hands is livid blue. What am I supposed to do now? I rubbed his hand with antibiotic ointment. I'll call the school before nine. Then it says, I'm leaving these mark, I'm leaving these marks of yours to you as they aren't coming off. Now I'll just read you a text sent by Daniel's mother to Kresilik, and this was why whilst Daniel was dying. Okay, he'll get over it by tomorrow. There's no point stressing ourselves out, and to call an ambulance because this will cause proper problems.

19:57 Okay, so around January 2012, school staff are becoming concerned. Daniel was looking very pale, his eyes had sunken into his head, and he was described as looking like a bag of bones. Daniel attended school for the week of the 27th of February to the 1st of March 2012. And during these times, this time Daniel had been prescribed a treatment for worms. So he had been prescribed treatment for worms. So there has been some kind of evaluation done, hasn't there, for him to get a prescription. So what are they missing?

20:39 Like everything is in front of them. They're saying his eyes have sunken into his head and he's looking pasty. I don't know how they're missing this. I don't, I don't get it. And these he's being seen by by health professionals. And sadly, this is the last chance anyone would have to intervene and get help for this child. That was the last opportunity. So on the 2nd of March, um, this all comes out in court that the couple they look up information on salt poisoning and child not responding. And then we see that text that says he'll get over it and there's no need to call an ambulance.

21:21 But we know that on the 1st of March 2012, poor Daniel was beaten so badly for wetting himself. The next day, his mother Googled patient in a coma and salt poisoning. Daniel was unconscious and he was in that room. So he was left in that room on the 1st of March. That's when the assault happened. His mother called 999 on the 3rd of March. So she left him for two days in that room alone. He's cold, he's starving, he's dying. And she left him there. So it just Just after 3 a.m. of Saturday, the 3rd of March, a call is made to emergency services by Magdalena.

22:07 She says her son is not breathing. She sounds a little bit emotional, but not how you would be. Paramedics arrive and they go to Daniel, who is massively unresponsive. They take him to hospital and he is pronounced dead at 3:50 a.m. He suffered a cardiac arrest and had a fatal brain injury. He actually had 10 separate injuries to his head. Daniel was severely underweight. He was just 23 pounds when he died. Daniel's mother and Kreselec were arrested and they were charged for Daniel's murder. They blamed each other for the killing.

22:50 They were both given life sentences and ordered to serve a minimum of 30 years. Now Mrs. Justice Cox told them that they had caused Daniel severe physical and mental suffering. Their punishments were designed to humiliate him, and that poor Daniel was a victim of chronic and systematic starvation. Now a report into the case of Daniel's death by Ron Locke didn't blame any individual agencies, but he said the professionals involved were too optimistic by what they saw, and the excuses made by Daniel's mother were accepted without question.

23:32 It seems like Daniel just became invisible. And the police were called to that home on 26 separate occasions in the two years that Kreselec lived there. That's at least one a month, if not more. Now Daniel's father, remember him, Eric? So he wanted his son to be buried in Poland, but unfortunately Eric didn't have enough money to fly Daniel's body out to him. So heartbreakingly, Daniel's body remained in the morgue for a further 18 months. Before a Polish funeral firm that um were in London, they actually stepped in to cover the cost, and Daniel was flown home.

24:20 And he was laid to rest on the 3rd of September 2013. Now on the 14th of July 2015, Magdalena, well, she was found unresponsive in her cell. She'd hung herself, so she'd commit suicide, so she's she died. And then on the 27th of January 2016, Kreselec was found dead in his cell. And it was found that he had suffered a massive heart attack. Never mind. Right, so Daniel's death caused huge public outcry. Members of the public actually donated£10,000 to the RSPCC in Daniel's memory. And Coventry, where he lived, they have hosted like gatherings to remember Daniel.

25:15 And they do it sort of every year around his anniversary, the anniversary of his death. And in 2014, indie rock band Little Comets released a song called Salt and they dedicated that to Daniel. I also want to dedicate this episode to little Daniel. Let me know what you think of this case.

25:50 So I could have added a lot more into this, but you can imagine it's quite a lot to get your head around and sort of put yourself through reading all the things that happened to him. But yes, let me know what you think. And thank you all for listening. And I like to end by saying in a world where you can be anything, be kind. Take care.