A young mother has told a jury her partner punched and beat her with a claw-hammer as their baby lay in the next room.
Tomas Gajowniczek (37) of The Ice Rink Apartments, Dolphin’s Barn, Dublin 8 has pleaded not guilty to the attempted murder of Alicja Kalinowska (30) at their home on June 16th, 2016. He also pleaded not guilty to intentionally or recklessly causing serious harm to Ms Kalinowska on the same date, at the same location.
Taking the stand in the Central Criminal Court on Tuesday, Ms Kalinowska told prosecution counsel Paul Burns SC she was helping her partner with his taxes when he started punching her in the face, stuffed clothes in her mouth to stop her breathing, gouged her eyes and beat her body, hands and feet with a claw hammer.
“I thought he was going to kill me,” she said, as she recalled how he told her: “It would be better to go to jail for life than a bitch like me stay alive.”
Mr Burns had earlier opened the case and told the jury that in this trial they would be asked to consider the Criminal Law Insanity Act of 2006, which states that if a person commits a crime but, due to mental illness, does not know that what he is doing is wrong or is unable to refrain from his actions, he can be found not guilty by reason of insanity.
However, he added that in this case he believes they will be satisfied the accused man was not suffering from a mental illness at the time and therefore does not qualify for that “special verdict”.
Ms Kalinowska told Mr Burns she started going out with the accused in 2006 when they lived in Poland. They moved to Ireland and had a daughter together in March 2014. Their relationship was normal and he was a good partner and father. She worked in a Subway sandwich shop and he worked in a Maxol garage.
In April 2013 the garage was raided and the raiders tied Mr Gajowniczek up and locked him in a toilet. He was upset, came home shaking and never returned to work after that.
When the accused man’s grandfather died around Christmas 2015 Mr Gajowniczek was very upset. They didn’t have enough money for him to travel to Poland for the funeral.
From January 2016 she noticed that some days her partner would be happy but other times he could be angry or sad. He began calling her “bad names”, and telling her she was a bad mother.
On June 12th, 2016 Ms Kalinowska arrived home from work and Mr Gajowniczek had locked the door and wouldn’t let her in. She couldn’t understand why he was doing this and she was worried about their daughter who was inside. She repeatedly knocked on the door but Mr Gajowniczek just told her to “go away”. Some hours later gardaí arrived and Mr Gajowniczek opened the door “like nothing had happened”. He had wrecked the apartment, she said.
On the night of the alleged assault, she said Tomas said he wanted to apply for tax back and she pulled up the Revenue Commissioners site for him. When he looked at it he said it was a “false” website and accused her of hiding something from him. They were sitting on the couch when he jumped on her and hit her repeatedly in the face. She begged him to stop because the baby was in the next room.
He took some clothes and put them in her mouth and covered her nose so she couldn’t breathe. When he started hitting her with a yellow and black claw-hammer she gave up, believing he was going to kill her.
“I didn’t know what he had in his head,” she said. “He was hitting me all over my body with the hammer.” When he finished with the hammer he started to gouge her eyes with his thumbs. The last thing she remembers before she lost consciousness was him putting a bottle in her mouth and telling her, “drink bitch”.
She was woken some time later by knocking at the front door. She opened it and it was a female neighbour, who took her upstairs and called gardaí and an ambulance. Ms Kalinowska was treated at St James’s Hospital for various injuries.
The trial continues on Wednesday in front of Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of six men and six women.