Serial rapist murdered girl, 12 | UK news
UK news This article is more than 19 years oldSerial rapist murdered girl, 12
This article is more than 19 years oldA man described by police as one of Britain's most dangerous sex offenders was told he would spend the rest of his life in jail today after being convicted of the murder of a 12-year-old girl.
Andrezej Kunowski, an illegal immigrant, attacked almost 30 children and young women in Britain and Poland.
He strangled Katerina Koneva to death in May 1997 but was not caught until last year when he was jailed for raping a 21-year-old student.
Judge Peter told him that life must mean life to protect others. The judge said: "I would be failing in my duty in the light of the evidence about your behaviour both in Poland and this country if I did not ensure you spend the rest of your life in prison."
Kunowski had taken the life of a child "of great promise". He said: "You ended it in circumstances of great violence and terror.
"I have no doubt at all that you committed that offence for the purposes of sexual gratification of some sort."
Kunowski, 48, of Acton, west London, denied the killing.
After the verdict, the jury was told he had fled to London after a judge in Poland released him on bail for an operation in 1996.
He entered Britain while on three months' bail that had been granted to him by a Polish judge so he could have a hip operation. He was allowed out of jail despite having a string of 39 convictions in Poland, mostly for sex attacks.
He was unsupervised and escaped to Britain as an illegal immigrant in 1996, a year after raping a 10-year-old girl in Poland.
He began stalking girls again and strangled 12-year-old Katerina Koneva in Hammersmith, west London, on May 22 1997, targeting her as she arrived home alone after school.
Following girls home from school was a modus operandi consistent with many of his other attacks in a 30-year career as a sex attacker in Poland.
After the verdict today, a senior detective described Konowski as one of "the most dangerous sex offenders" he had encountered. He said he will be questioned about the unsolved disappearance of other girls. Detective Chief Inspector David Little said: "Officers from the serious crime directorate are looking at crimes of a similar nature where females have gone missing but there is no evidence to connect Kunowski with any of these at the moment."
After Kunowski attacked Katerina, her father, Trajce Konev, chased him from their home, not knowing she was dying in an upstairs room. Kunowski escaped after hijacking a car but was charged last year when his DNA, taken after he was arrested for raping a student, matched a hair found on the murdered girl's cardigan.
Three other schoolgirls the same age as Katerina, also with dark hair and in uniform, had been stalked in the Hammersmith area around the time of the murder.
Kunowski, of Acton, west London, denied murder saying it was a case of mistaken identity but was convicted by a jury at the Old Bailey. The jurors were unaware that Kunowski was a serial rapist with a string of convictions.
The jury of four women and eight men took two-and-a-half hours to reach the verdict. Bespectacled, grey-haired Kunowski stood impassively in the dock.
Katerina's last hours had been retraced in court and her father told of his attempts to catch Kunowski.
After pushing his way into the flat, Kunowski had slowly throttled Katerina with a cord in a sexually motivated attack. But as she slipped into unconsciousness, Kunowski was disturbed by Mr Konev.
Finding the living room door barricaded with a chair, Mr Konev looked under the door and was alarmed to see a man's feet. Kunowski left his fingerprints as he leapt out of a first-floor window of the house.
Mr Konev ran out of the house and confronted him and decided to chase the man rather than go back into the house. After a desperate chase, during which Mr Konev was threatened with a knife, he returned home, forced the door and found Katerina.
He broke down as he described his efforts to save his daughter by cutting the cord round her neck. He said: "I tried to release it. It was too tight. I could not get it. I went to the kitchen to take something. I took a knife - I cut it. I started to cry and call her name - Katerina, Katerina. A policeman and I tried to resuscitate her."
Her family had moved to Britain from Macedonia in 1995 to escape the conflict in the Balkans. She was described as a bright, quiet girl who was doing well at Holland Park school.
Kunowski was 17 when he first raped a teenager and went on to commit 27 serious sexual assaults on females aged 12-20. They culminated in a 15-year jail sentence in 1979. He was freed after 10 years.
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