Following the appeals filed by both the defendant’s attorney and the prosecutor, the case was remanded for retrial. The decision was prompted by the defense submitting Beata G.’s private medical opinion, which indicates that it is possible to conduct an additional examination of the wound channel in the victim using modern radiodiagnostic methods. Since the defense disputes the above-mentioned person’s responsibility, the examination could help establish whether the defendant was in fact the person who injured the victim.

The court also agreed with the prosecutor that the defendant’s conduct required renewed legal analysis. The prosecutor challenged the legal classification adopted in the judgment, under which Beata G.’s conduct was assessed as exposing the victim to the immediate danger of loss of life or health and causing bodily injuries resulting in a health disorder lasting more than seven days. According to the prosecutor, however, the above-mentioned person caused the victim serious bodily harm in the form of an illness that posed a real threat to his life.

For these reasons, the judgment was overturned and the case was referred back to the court of first instance for retrial. It should be recalled that, in a judgment dated 7 December 2015, Beata G. was found guilty and sentenced to one year’s imprisonment, suspended for three years. The court also imposed a fine of PLN 3,000 on the defendant, who is now 46 years old.

In April 2012, the Głogów District Prosecutor’s Office filed the indictment with the court. The incident took place on 16 November 2011 at the Vocational and General Education School Complex in Lubin. Around noon, the victim—a computer technology teacher—went to the defendant’s office to discuss malfunctioning computers. During a verbal altercation between the two, who had been in conflict for some time, the upset Beata G. injured her subordinate on the left side of the abdomen with a kitchen knife, causing a puncture wound nearly 17 cm long.

An opinion obtained during the investigation from a forensic medicine expert indicated that the blow had been delivered with considerable force. The expert ruled out the possibility that the wound had resulted from self-harm or falling onto the knife. In the expert’s view, it was an active injury deliberately inflicted by another person.

Beata G. pleaded not guilty to the offense with which she was charged. The above-mentioned person was accused of causing the victim serious bodily harm in the form of an illness that posed a real threat to his life, as a result of a stab wound to the abdominal cavity accompanied by hemorrhaging that led to hypovolemic shock. The suspect faced a sentence of between one and ten years’ imprisonment for the offense.

During the meticulously conducted trial, the court questioned several times the doctors who had treated the victim, as well as several forensic medicine experts appointed in the case. Ultimately, the court found that Beata G. had committed the offense with which she was charged, but that the stabbing had caused the victim not serious bodily harm, but bodily injuries resulting in a health disorder lasting more than seven days. The court found that the defendant had exposed her subordinate to the immediate danger of loss of life or serious bodily harm. Beata G. faced a lighter sentence for such conduct, ranging from six months to five years’ imprisonment.
Both parties appealed the judgment handed down on 7 December 2015; the appeals were resolved in the manner described above.

The case will be reheard by the District Court in Lubin.

Liliana Łukasiewicz, acting on behalf of the press spokesperson for the Legnica District Prosecutor’s Office/ii