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England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions


You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> England and Wales Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) Decisions >> Woroniecki, R. v [2025] EWCA Crim 364 (12 March 2025)
URL: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2025/364.html
Cite as: [2025] EWCA Crim 364

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WARNING: reporting restrictions may apply to the contents transcribed in this document, particularly if the case concerned a sexual offence or involved a child. Reporting restrictions prohibit the publication of the applicable information to the public or any section of the public, in writing, in a broadcast or by means of the internet, including social media. Anyone who receives a copy of this transcript is responsible in law for making sure that applicable restrictions are not breached. A person who breaches a reporting restriction is liable to a fine and/or imprisonment. For guidance on whether reporting restrictions apply, and to what information, ask at the court office or take legal advice.
Neutral Citation Number: [2025] EWCA Crim 364
CASE NO 202401946/B4

IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
ON APPEAL FROM THE CROWN COURT AT CAMBRIDGE
HHJ TAYLOR KC

Royal Courts of Justice
Strand
London
WC2A 2LL
12 March 2025

B e f o r e :

LORD JUSTICE JEREMY BAKER
MR JUSTICE GOOSE
MR JUSTICE CONSTABLE

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REX 

- v -

MAREK WORONIECKI

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Computer Aided Transcript of Epiq Europe Ltd,
Lower Ground Floor, 46 Chancery Lane, London, WC2A 1JE
Tel No: 020 7404 1400; Email: rcj@epiqglobal.co.uk (Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)

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NON-COUNSEL APPLICATION
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HTML VERSION OF APPROVED JUDGMENT
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Crown Copyright ©

  1. MR JUSTICE CONSTABLE: The provisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 apply to these offences. Under those provisions, where a sexual offence has been committed against a person, no matter relating to that person shall, during that person's lifetime, be included in any publication if it is likely to lead members of the public to identify that person as the victim of that offence. This prohibition applies unless waived or lifted in accordance with section 3 of the Act.
  2. This is a renewed application for an extension of time of 232 days and an application for leave to appeal against conviction, leave having been refused by the single judge.
  3. The applicant was convicted on 11 August 2023 at Cambridge Crown Court of two counts of rape (counts 2 and 5), one count of controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship (count 1), one count of intentional suffocation (count 3) and two counts of assault (counts 4 and 6).
  4. The applicant applies for an extension of time in which to renew his applications. The notice of refusal was sent on 27 November 2024. The Form SJ was returned on 8 January 2025. We accept, as submitted by the applicant, that the prison did not deliver the form to him until 20 December 2024 and that it is appropriate to extend time to renew.
  5. The facts

  6. The applicant and the complainant had been in a relationship since 2021. The applicant lived between Poland and the United Kingdom. In July 2022 the complainant became pregnant and both parties agreed to settle in the United Kingdom and try to live together as a family. The complainant gave evidence that the applicant was controlling and coercive in various ways, such as preventing her from leaving the house by attaching a padlock and chain to the door, or dragging her back into the flat if she got as far as the lift. She said that the applicant hid her passport and would hide or control the use of her phone. The complainant said she had no money of her own. The complainant's evidence was that when he was drunk she was fearful and he was routinely violent. On the day she arrived in the United Kingdom she said that he had assaulted her so badly she could not leave the house for two weeks.
  7. Counts 2 and 3 relate to an incident in December 2022 when the complainant says that the applicant came home drunk. He wanted to have sex but the complainant refused because he was drunk. The applicant hit the complainant, pushed her on the bed and vaginally raped her. At the same time he pressed his arm across her neck so hard that she could not breathe. She was shouting that she was suffocating and he was calling her names such as "bitch" and "slut". The complainant tried to defend herself but was being pressed down. She gave evidence that strangulation was never part of their normal sex life.
  8. Count 5 related to an incident on 23 December 2022 when the complainant alleges that the applicant came into the kitchen, threw the complainant to the floor and vaginally raped her. He was calling her names like "bitch" and "slag". There had been no conversation before this happened and the complainant told the applicant that she did not want to have sex. This rape caused bruising which the complainant had to cover up with make-up on New Year's Eve.
  9. Count~6 related to an incident just before Christmas that year when the complainant said that the applicant was angry at the complainant and started swearing and shouting. The applicant grabbed the baby's milk bottle and threw it at the complainant whilst she was holding the baby. The bottle hit her on the shoulder, bounced off and hit the baby. The baby cried but happily calmed down quickly.
  10. Count 4 related to an incident after New Year's Eve 2022 when the complainant was in the kitchen after a mutual friend, A, had left. The applicant started shouting and calling her names. The complainant told him to calm down but he started to hit and kick her. At one point he used a frying pan and a metal pole in the drying rack to assault her. The complainant was left bleeding from her forehead and had bruises to her face, arms, legs and body, as well as black eyes. On the morning of 1 January the complainant went to her local shop in a state of distress with bruising to her eyes. She told the shop keeper she had been assaulted by her partner and he called the police.
  11. The jury heard from the complainant, from A, from another witness who gave evidence of conversations with the complainant, and from another witness who gave evidence of the bruising. The prosecution also relied upon also forensic evidence relating to the location of the complainant's blood in the flat, including potentially on the pole used in one of the assaults. There was also evidence of the 19,549 telephone calls the applicant made to the complainant during his time of five months in custody awaiting trial and letters to the complainant, the contents of which the prosecution submitted amounted to threats or blackmail to persuade her to drop the charges.
  12. The applicant, who was represented at trial, gave evidence in his own defence. He said that he was not controlling, that all sexual activity was consensual and that if he had injured the complainant at any time it was in self-defence. He said the allegations were being made up so that the complainant could get money and that she was conspiring with A, her now partner, to do this. The jury plainly rejected this account and believed the complainant in respect of all counts.
  13. The application to extend time

  14. The basis of the application for an extension of time is that the applicant does not speak, read or write in English and is therefore dependent on others to assist. In his home country the lawyer files the Notice of Appeal. The applicant's solicitor initially told him he would do this but later, after further enquiries, the applicant was told that he in fact needed to submit this himself. This does not amount to a good reason for a delay of 232 days and the application to extend time is refused.
  15. We have in any event considered the substance of the appeal. We agree with the single judge and do not consider that the applicant has an arguable case that he was wrongly convicted. In addition to the original grounds of appeal, we have considered the further information provided with the application to renew.
  16. We turn to the grounds of appeal.
  17. New evidence

  18. The principal ground relates to new evidence. The applicant says that on 13 September 2023 he was due in the family court at Peterborough. The complainant was also present and it was during this court session that the applicant says that the complainant admitted to taking money from his bank and she also admitted to drinking excessive amounts of alcohol. These are facts which, it is said, the complainant denied during the trial at the Crown Court which led to the applicant being convicted. It is said that this new evidence casts doubt on the applicant's conviction.
  19. However, the issue around the complainant's use of the applicant's money was already fully before the jury. The jury had copies of a Metro bank account. It showed that the complainant had indeed taken money from it. The learned Recorder referred to it expressly in his summing-up. The summing-up also referred to the applicant's Barclays Bank account and the applicant's evidence from which he implied that the complainant had been taking money. Indeed, the summing-up records the complainant's evidence that she said she did not hide that she was using his account as well as the money that came into her own account for the baby. She said that she had withdrawn money for food, for clothes for the baby, nappies, milk but also tobacco for herself. The summing-up also identified that there were letters in which the applicant was telling the complainant to use money for the baby.
  20. The issue of the complainant's drinking was also fully in front of the jury, including an agreed fact based upon forensic evidence about her alcohol intake. This showed that the complainant was consuming an average of 7.5 units a day over the previous six months. The learned Recorder drew this properly to the attention of the jury in his summing-up and identified appropriately to what issues in the trial this evidence may have related.
  21. In these circumstances, the substance of the evidence said to be new would have added nothing to the evidence already before the jury and which they would have considered as part of their deliberations. It is not reasonably arguable that the evidence relating to the family court proceedings is new or that it gives rise to any basis to consider that the conviction is unsafe.
  22. Other grounds

  23. Although not set out in the applicant's grounds of appeal document, the letter from the applicant, who has represented himself, identified other potential bases of complaint about the trial.
  24. The first of these is the suggestion that the complainant's description of the attack was physically impossible. However, this of course was a matter for the jury who plainly were sure on the evidence before them that this is not the case. The applicant's related complaint is that he was suffering from health issues which contributed to the contention that he would not physically have been able to overpower the complainant. The applicant says that this was not drawn to the attention of the jury. First, however, the applicant gave evidence and was questioned about the attacks. It was plainly open to him to have said that he was not physically capable of what was being alleged or that he had health issues when giving evidence. Second, it can be noted that there were no significant health issues raised by the applicant in the pre-sentence report. For these reasons this is not an arguable ground of appeal.
  25. Next, the applicant asserts that it was A who inflicted violence on the complainant and/or raped her. He also says that he asked the judge to call the complainant and A and interview them and that the prosecution objected to this course. In its response to this allegation, the prosecution was unable to shed light on what this may have been referring to. In any event it would never be for the judge to call in witnesses and interview them. The two relevant people, the complainant and A, both gave evidence and were cross-examined. This allegation was not put to either the complainant or A at trial, nor was it suggested by the applicant in his own evidence at the time. This is not an arguable ground of appeal.
  26. In the circumstances the renewed application for leave to appeal is refused.

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