South Yorkshire Times, August 26th, 1944
Polish Man for Trial On Attempted Murder Charge
Alleged Bedroom Attack on Mexborough Girl
Pleading not guilty and reserving his defence a young Pole, Konstanty Sienkiewicz, described as a medical student of Altyre Street, Glasgow, was on Monday at the Doncaster West Riding Police court committed for trial at the next Leeds Assizes on a charge of attempting to murder Joyce Bramwell (19), a student of Queen’s Terrace, Mexborough, on July 20th, and with wounding her mother, Mrs. Margaret Robinson Bramwell.
Made Welcome
Mr. N. D. Shaffner appeared for the Director of Public Prosecution. Opening the case, he told the magistrates that some time before Easter 1943, the accused came to the Bramwell’s home and introduced himself as a friend of one of their relatives. He was made welcome and used to go out walking with Joyce and her younger brother.
On a number of occasions, he went out with the girl herself in a friendly way. Eventually he proposed to her but was refused. He proposed marriage several times afterwards but the girl still refused.
At Christmas 1943 the accused repeated his proposal but was again refused. He left and nothing more was heard of him until Good Friday this year when Joyce was home on Easter vacation. He arrived at her home and a slight quarrel arose then, but there were no threats. As the accused became “somewhat of a nuisance” Mr. Bramwell ordered him to keep away. He left but wrote to the girl while she was away at college. She did not, however, reply.
Continuing, Mr. Shaffner said two or three days before the alleged offence, accused called at the Bramwell home, but was told he could not stay. He made several other visits and on the date of the alleged offence he entered the home at 9-30 a.m. while Joyce and her mother were in bed. Mrs. Bramwell, hearing someone downstairs, called out asking who was there. The accused called back that it was “Kostek.” She went downstairs and told him to leave, but as she went to get some bandage for herself, she heard the accused go upstairs. Following him upstairs she heard him entreating Joyce to marry him, said Mr. Shaffner.
Mrs. Bramwell left the bedroom to answer a knock on the front door leaving the accused with Joyce.
Struck With Axe
The girl remembered a movement at her side – said Mr. Shaffner, and on looking up seeing the accused standing over her, holding an axe above her head and bringing it down with considerable force, she screamed and her mother hurried upstairs to find the accused kneeling on the bed and raining terrific blows upon the girl with his axe added Mr. Shaffner.
In an effort to protect her, Mrs. Bramwell received a cut over her right eye and also a black eye. Joyce was severely injured about the head and was covered in blood.
A neighbour, Mrs. Williams, heard the girl’s screams, came into the house, and ran upstairs where she saw the accused sitting on the bed. She attended to the girl and her mother and then went for a doctor. When she returned the accused had left. The doctor had to insert stitches in a severe wound in the girl’s head. Both the girl and her mother were suffering badly from shock.
Enquiries were set on foot to trace the accused who was eventually found to have visited Glasgow Police Station and spoken to Chief Superintendent Ewing of the C.I.D.
Mr. Shaffner went on to say that accused had admitted to that officer that he had attempted to murder a young woman with an axe. He had, he said, been keeping company with her, but her father and mother objected. “I don’t remember what I said,” he was alleged to have said “but something came over me. I took the axe, which I had under my jacket, and struck her several times on her head.” The Superintendent phoned the Mexborough Police and then arrested the accused.
Stitches Necessary
Dr. Sukhdev Pershai Bhatia, “Rock Lea,” Wath Road, Mexborough, giving evidence said that when called to the Bramwell’s home he found Joyce bleeding freely from an incised wound on the scalp over the frontal bone and other cuts. She was severely shocked. The wound in the scalp would have proved fatal if it had penetrated the skull bone. Several stitches were necessary. The girl had been under witness’s care ever since and had had a severe nervous relapse.
Mrs. Bramwell also had a wound over the right eyebrow, and was also suffering severely from shock.
Joyce Bramwell told the bench that “Kostek” had made love to her on several occasions and asked her to marry him, but she refused. On the morning of July 20th when the accused came upstairs to her bedroom, witness remained in bed. He told her he could not carry on with his medical work if she did not marry him
“I was not looking at the accused,” said witness “when I heard a scuffle, I looked up and saw the accused standing over me with an axe raised above his head. He brought it down aiming at my head. I moved my head quickly missing the full force of the blow and I screamed.”
Witness added that her mother came up and tried to protect her. Getting out of bed witness ran downstairs and called to her mother, and remained there until the arrival of the doctor. Several neighbours came into the house and attended to them.
Neighbours’ Evidence
Corroborative evidence was given by Mrs. Margaret R. Bramwell, Mrs. Hilda Williams, 2 Sarah Street, Mexborough, a neighbour, who said she went to the house on hearing the girl’s screams; and another neighbour, Mrs. Blanche Thorpe, 2, Queen’s Terrace, Mexborough, who said she also went to the assistance of the Bramwells.
Evidence that her mother had sold an axe to the accused on July 18th was given by Mrs. Clarice Elliott, a Mexborough ironmonger who said that the man first asked for a “big cutting knife.” Being unable to supply one she referred him to another shop. He returned later however and asked to see a chopper.
Lieutenant Jan Leyberg, Medical Officer in the Polish Air Force, said that the accused had been treated in the Carstairs military hospital, Lanark from April 18th to May of this year. He had been admitted on account of depression and attempted suicide. The man was of good education, was a refugee from Poland when the Germans invaded and went to Lithuania. He had been captured by the Nazis and had had several months in solitary confinement, being badly treated. His neurotic state was closely connected with his unhappy experience whilst in prison. He did not feel happy in the Air Force where he was training as an electrician, because he wanted to complete his education. There were no signs of insanity during the time the accused was in the military hospital.
The accused pleaded not guilty and reserved his defence. Bail was refused and he was committed to await trial at the Leeds Assizes in November.