A VILE killer who murdered his own son has been convicted of making and possessing hundreds of child abuse images.
Lukasz Czapla was found guilty of two charges yesterday after a two-day trial at Edinburgh Sheriff Court.
Officers who were investigating the sick killing of his son in November 2020 discovered 445 vile images on his computer.
The despicable 43-year-old killed his two-year-old son, Julius, by shooting him in the head with an air pistol, stabbing him with a skewer and suffocating him.
During his trial this week the jury heard from two expert witnesses who told how Czapla’s computer had folders titled ‘12-year-old’, ‘13-year-old’, ‘pre-teen’ and ‘children’ saved on it.
They also discovered a photo of his driving license on the hard drive.
Prosecutor Joanna Waller told the court how warped Czapla had been searching for the word “teens and children” whilst on a file sharing site.
She said: “When his computer was forensically examined various indecent images of children were discovered.
“The accused searched the words ‘teen’ and ‘child’ in various searches.
“He would have known what the images were by their title.
“In total 445 images were downloaded and the experts witnesses confirmed the accused had interacted with them on more than one occasion.
“Given the number of images I would suggest these were not downloaded in error – he knew full well what he was downloading and storing.
“These images depict the abuse of very young children.”
The jury of ten men and five women rejected claims from Czapla’s defence advocate, Murray Macara, that the evidence in this case was “inadequate” and found him guilty of making and possessing indecent images just weeks before slaying his son.
Members of the jury were visibly shocked when they were told of his previous crime.
Czapla was sentenced to 18 months in jail, which will serve concurrently and will have his named added to the sex offenders register for ten years.
Passing sentence Sheriff Julius Kamorovski said: “You have been convicted of downloading and possessing indecent images of children of the most serious category.
“This conviction is further evidence of your moral depravity.”
During his murder trial last year prosecutors stated that Czapla killed young Lucas to “get back” at and “hurt” his former partner Patrycja Szczesniak after discovering she had started a new relationship.
The high court heard how Patrycja had split from Czapla in June 2020 but was happy to allow him to look after defenceless Julius.
However, on the night of November 20 2020, she told Czapla that she was seeing somebody else in a text message.
This prompted him to send her a series of bizarre texts asking her about her new partner and her sex life.
His messages were ignored and Czapla then downed antidepressants with wine and decided to shoot Julius three times in the head with a gas powered air pistol – three ball bearings were recovered from the tot’s head.
Czapla’s claims that he was of ‘diminished responsibility’ at the time he killed Julius were rejected by the jury and they convicted him of murder.
He was later given a life sentence with a punishment part of 22 years.
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