Man used pumpkin in ‘ferocious’ attack
ASSAILANT RESPONDING TO PERCEIVED ‘TWO FINGERS’ SLIGHT IS JAILED FOR FOUR YEARS
A BRUTAL thug smashed his way into a stranger’s flat, threatened to kill him and battered him with a pumpkin.
Daniel Kisiel, 29, ‘ferociously’ attacked the man in his home in Salford after wrongly believing that he had ‘stuck two fingers up’ at him.
He initially confronted him outside his front door but then came back four hours later in the early hours of the morning and smashed his way in.
The victim was brushing his teeth when Kisiel burst in and hit him over the head with the pumpkin and told him ‘I’m going to f ***** g kill you, you c***.’
He then battered him with a broken piece of wood from the smashed door which had nails in and kicked at him as he curled up into a ball on the floor.
At Manchester Crown Court, Kisiel was jailed for four years for assault occasioning actual bodily harm and criminal damage, but Judge Anthony Cross QC said that he had been ‘grossly undercharged.’
Prosecutors had considered whether to charge him with GBH over the assault on January 26 this year, but accepted the lesser charge of ABH, which the judge said was ‘inadequate.’
The court heard how the victim had only been living his flat for about seven weeks before the attack happened.
On the day of the incident, he had been out and returned home to find Kisiel, who was a complete stranger, sitting outside his front door.
“He asked him whether he was waiting for somebody and received a response but couldn’t understand him”, prosecutor Elizabeth Evans said.
“The defendant stood up as if he was blocking the complainant’s way into his flat door. He described him as smelling of alcohol.
“The defendant made a hand gesture sticking two fingers up at the male and ‘why did you do this?’ He had no idea what he was talking about.”
The pair had an argument for a couple of minutes before the complainant went into his flat and locked his door behind him.
Four hours later at 1am, he was brushing his teeth in his bathroom when he heard an ‘almighty bang.’
“The defendant smashed his door open and came into the bathroom. He was carrying a pumpkin which he smashed over the man’s head”, Ms Evans added.
In mitigation David Morton said his client, who has previous convictions for battery and common assaults, continues to deny the offence.
He described him as being ‘clearly focused on family’ and as being a hardworking citizen since he moved to the UK from Poland in 2009.
But Judge Anthony Cross QC described the attack by Kisiel, of Great Clowes Street in Salford, as ‘ferocious’ and brutal.’
“The victim would have expected that he was safe in his own home”, the judge told him while passing sentence.
“You are a violent man, of that I am sure. You have demonstrated no remorse whatsoever and this is a serious offence.”