Mark Graffius QC and Fiona Robertson secure Not Guilty verdict in Lockdown murder
Mark Graffius QC and Fiona Robertson secured a not guilty verdict for their client, Tomasz Lazdauskas, who was accused of beating the victim to death in his back garden in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.
The prosecution alleged the murder was motivated by drunken, jealous rage after the victim had expressed a romantic interest in the defendant’s wife and was on friendly terms with the defendant’s new girlfriend. The defendant was accused of luring the victim to the house on the night of the murder where he and the co-defendant were waiting to exact revenge. CCTV from the neighbouring property showed that when the victim tried to leave the scene he was herded back into the property by the defendant.
The victim was subjected to a prolonged attack involving kicking, stamping and an assault with multiple weapons before photographs were taken of his bloodied body – taken, the Crown alleged, as “grisly record” of what the defendants had done. Blood spatter analysis of the scene revealed the victim’s blood on two pairs of footwear belonging to the victim while the victim’s property was found discarded in the defendant’s bin.
The Crown alleged that CCTV showed the defendants laughing and joking as they wheeled the victim’s lifeless body away from the scene on his own bicycle. The victim was wheeled to a nearby industrial estate where his body was set on fire in an attempt to destroy any evidence linking the defendants to the crime.
In letters to his wife from prison, the defendant confessed he had planned for the co-defendant to beat up the victim “a little bit” and admitted manslaughter at the start of the trial. He maintained, however, that he had not intended for the victim to be seriously injured or killed and the co-defendant had simply gone too far.
Mark Graffius QC and Fiona Robertson were instructed by Simon Milburn of Hunt and Coombs Solicitors.
Links to media coverage of the case can be found here:
- BBC News
- Cambridgeshire News
- Cambridgeshire Constabulary News
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