Shropshire Star

Jailed man 'lucky not to be facing murder charge', says judge

A man from Mid Wales has been jailed – and told by a judge that he was lucky not to be facing a murder charge.

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Miroslaw Orzechowski, 28, had admitted two charges of wounding and was jailed for 27 months.

Co-defendant Tomasz Kuras, 33, admitted affray and he was jailed for 10 months.

The two men, both then living at Treowen in Newtown but now at Llanfarian, near Aberystwyth, had originally been charged with wounding with intent, following an incident in January of last year. But both were cleared when the prosecution offered no evidence against them.

Judge Parry said both had admitted their parts in a serious incident of violence involving weapons.

Orzechowski, he said, should be in no doubt that "you could be standing here to be sentenced for murder. Utterly out of control of your senses because of alcohol, you became involved in a violent argument."

Both had resorted to picking up weapons and Orzechowski had used a bladed weapon to strike one victim to the head.

The wound to a second victim was more significant, two stab wounds to the torso causing a small laceration of the liver.

The judge told the defendants, who followed the proceedings at Mold Crown Court yesterday with the aid of a Polish interpreter, that the

sentence would take into account the time they had already spent in custody and then on a qualifying curfew after they had been bailed. Prosecuting John Philpotts said the facts of the incident on January 25, 2015, were not clear, but Orzechowski attacked two men.

Mark Connor, for Orzechowski, said it was his case that one of the complainants had been asked to leave a house where a man was being bullied over a debt. Jonathan Austin, for Kuras, said he asked a man to leave and he himself was grabbed.