Mother who tried to help her murderer son flee jailed for 15 months

Mother who tried to help her murderer son flee to Poland after he killed his 32-year-old partner is jailed for 15 months

• Hanna Skupinski, 59, tried to help son, Patryk Skupinski, 37, flee the country 

A mother from Coventry who attempted to help her murderer son flee to Poland has been jailed.

After Hanna Skupinski, 52 found out her son Patryk Skupinski, 37, had killed his partner Marlene Doyle, 32, she contacted another of her sons in Poland to see if he could arrange travel out of the UK.

The 59-year-old from Bell Green Road, Coventry protected Patryk Skupinski after he killed the much-loved mother-of-three on January 15, 2022 and when police officers attended her home to speak to him she initially refused to open the door. 

Partners Michal Lada, 41, and Kinga Rybacka, 27, also helped to keep the murderer hidden from police at their home in Blythe Road, Coventry.

Having been found guilty of assisting an offender at a previous hearing, all three co-conspirators were jailed yesterday at Coventry Crown Court for their corroboration. 

Killer’s mother Hanna Skupinski (pictured), 59, hid her son from police and tried to help him flee the country

Patryk Skupinski (pictured), 37, was convicted of murder at Coventry Crown Court  and sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 21 years.

However Lada’s involvement in removing the weapon Patryk Skupinski had used to repeatedly hit Ms Doyle while she lay in bed at her home in Othello Court persuaded Judge Thomas Rochford to hand him the longest sentence of the three.

Lada was sentenced to 42 months imprisonment less 135 days spent on a qualifying curfew while the case was progressing through the courts. 

Rybacka and Hanna Skupinski were both sentenced to 15 months behind bars. 

Rybacka, four-and-a-half-months pregnant, broke down in tears as she and her co-defendants were sent down. 

A dock officer was forced to escort her to the cells as she clung to Lada in desperation.

Each of the defendants were offered mitigation in the form of their previous good character and a misplaced ‘loyalty’ to Patryk Skupinski after his shocking crime. 

But each was told their offending crossed the custody threshold ‘by a significant margin’ and that only an immediate custodial sentence could be ‘justified’.

Marlene Doyle (pictured), 32, was killed by her partner Patryk Skupinski

In jailing Hanna Skupinski, Judge Rochford said: ‘You were actively arranging his escape from the UK. Whilst that plan was never put into action, I’m sure it would have been carried out had his arrest not intervened.’

Judge Rochford told Lada his role in the ‘very sorry episode’, was the most serious. ‘Within minutes of being told by Patryk Skupinski what he had done, you were lending enthusiastic and practical assistance,’ the Judge said.

‘You returned with him to Othello Court at around 7am [the day after the murder]. You even climbed scaffolding outside the neighbouring building in a desperate attempt to get in.

‘And further, I’m sure, having heard all of the evidence, you carried away the weapon that had been used to kill Marlene Doyle and disposed of it somewhere, never to be found.’ 

Earlier, in the same courtroom, Patryk Skupinski had been sentenced to life in prison with a minimum term of 21 years.

The court was told how Marlene, a woman with ‘a heart of gold’, was seeking help ‘to learn to become the best mum that she could be’ to her three young sons. 

Ms Doyle’s heartbroken mum said the pain caused by her daughter death was ‘unbearable’.

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