Holyport man denies murder as he tells jury he ‘can't remember’ fatal Slough confrontation

The trial continues for the Holyport man accused of murdering his ex-partner’s boyfriend in their Slough home during a ‘sustained attack’ of multiple punches and kicks to his head.

Tomasz Kopec was 46 years old when he was badly beaten in Grant Avenue on April 25, sometime after 6am.

Jakub Nowicki, aged 40 of Ascot Road, was charged with grievous bodily harm the day after the assault – but when Mr Kopec died, this escalated to a murder charge.

He is also facing an actual bodily harm charge against his ex-partner Karolina Nowicka, 35, who lived at this address, and a charge of criminal damage. 

As his trial continued today (Wednesday), Nowicki himself took the stand for his defence.

Defence counsel Martin McCarthy KC asked Nowicki about the early hours of the morning running up to Mr Kopec’s death.

Mr McCarthy acknowledged that there is ‘no dispute’ that Nowicki went to the house in Grant Avenue and asked him why.

Nowicki said he ‘just wanted to see how she [Karolina] was doing.’

He later described being concerned for her welfare and that of their daughter, who was unwell at the time. He said Karolina had not been responding to his messages regarding this.

Asked if he had gone there with the intention to harm the couple, Nowicki said he had not, and added he was not even sure that Mr Kopec was going to be there.

CCTV showed Nowicki going around the back and Nowicki confirmed he accessed the Grant Avenue property by the back gate.

Asked why, he said that, because he only has one kidney, he was uncomfortably needing to urinate and planned to go in the garden.

Though he climbed over the gate to access the property, he said that he was ‘let in’ to the home by Mr Kopec who was standing at the threshold.

However, he professed not to know or remember much else about the incident from that point. He did remember the two men ‘pushing each other’.

“I just wanted him to go out the house,” said Nowicki.

During this he ‘got really tired’ and went to use the toilet upstairs. When he came down, he said he assumed the couple were still in the kitchen where he had left them, and went to the dining room to pick up the cat that was there.

He said at this point he was put into a headlock.

“It had to be a strong headlock, because I can’t remember [what happened],” he said. “I wanted to get out of it. I probably did everything possible. [I was] flailing my hands.”

Nowicki said he didn’t know if his hands struck his attacker at this point.

“I was feeling really tired and exhausted. I couldn’t breathe. I was [falling] unconscious,” he said.

There was evidence of damage to his body afterwards, he said.

“I was struggling to see for a few days,” he said. “It took a month and a half to sort my vision out.”

He said he did not remember Mr Kopec falling down, he only remembers seeing him on the floor.

Nowicki said Mr Kopec was conscious then, and that he wasn’t aware how badly injured Mr Kopec was when he left the house.

He denied that he had wanted to kill Mr Kopec, or that he meant him serious harm.

On cross-examination, Nowicki repeated claims that he had not punched Mr Kopec in the head, nor his neck; nor kicked or kneed him in these places, nor the groin or stomach; and said he had not hit any part of Mr Kopec ‘deliberately.’

Prosecutor Lesley Bates KC queried Nowicki on the findings of the post-mortem, which showed blunt force trauma caused by multiple punches or kicks.

“You understand that this means not just flailing around?” she asked him. “How did this happen?”

Nowicki said that he’d heard Mr Kopec had ‘drinking epilepsy’ which might have caused him to fall down and added that the blood-thinning effect of alcohol could have made the wounds worse.

But Ms Bates did not accept this line of logic as it did not accord with the findings of the post-mortem. She also rejected any notion that this might have been a fight that got out of hand.

“One came off very much worse than the other. This was no fair fight, was it?”

Nowicki said repeatedly that he could not remember what happened.

Ms Bates said: “You were the only one there, weren’t you? You were the only person in physical contact with him. Karolina didn’t cause these injuries, did she?”

Nowicki said ‘I don’t know,’ to this, and Ms Bates replied: “You do know because you were there. You’re trying to find some other explanation because you know this is what you did.

“Karolina did not end up covered in blood like you did.”

Ms Bates described how multiple pieces of Nowicki’s clothing were spotted or stained with blood and it was all Mr Kopec’s, bar one drop.

She said: “You have no explanation as to how Mr Kopec ended up with these injuries. I suggest you do know the answer – you attacked him and kept attacking him.”

Speaking to his motive, Ms Bates posited that Nowicki saw Mr Kopec as a barrier to Nowicki getting his family back together and that this was on his mind when he went to Grant Avenue.

But Nowicki denied that Mr Kopec was on his mind that morning.

The trial continues.