A man stabbed a 15-year-old boy after attacking his mother and tried to flee the country on a dinghy, a trial heard.
Manchester Crown Court heard that Suleman Altaf, 44, allegedly murdered Jakub Szymanski and stabbed his former partner, Katarzyna Bastek, on Bednal Avenue in the Miles Platting area of Manchester in June this year.
Szymanski died in hospital after being badly hurt during the attack. Altaf was accused of the murder of Szymanski and the attempted murder of Bastek. However, he denied the charges.
The court heard that Altaf had been walking around the area for hours carrying a knife before entering the house. Bastek was speaking to a friend on Facebook Messenger at the time.
According to prosecutor Alexander Leach KC, Bastek pleaded Altaf not to do anything wrong when she saw him inside the house.
“CCTV caught what he was wearing and carrying. He was wearing a baseball cap, a surgical face mask and blue latex gloves. Bastek could not remember what happened, but she does recall noticing a shadow moving in the corridor of her home," Leach is reported to have said.
“She couldn’t see where it was coming from, but she saw it was the defendant and that he was carrying a knife."
She requested to him," Please, I beg you, don’t do nothing wrong.” But he reached forward, stabbed her in the stomach and pushed her towards the sofa. During the struggle, she bit his nose and slipped on the blood, which led to her falling to the ground.
Bastek called her son Szymanski for assistance and the latter confronted Altaf. When her son fought the accused, Bastek realised that she was bleeding from her stomach and called out for her friend.
Bastek contacted her adult son and asked him to come home immediately. He reached along with his girlfriend, friend, and friend's father and they tried to revive Szymanski.
They both were taken to the Manchester Royal Infirmary. Despite their best attempts, paramedics declared Szymanski dead one hour later.
Post-mortem report said that he died from substantial blood loss with a contribution of blood inhalation.
Bastek was treated for a variety of wounds, including three stab wounds to her shoulder, one to her chest, one to her temple, one to her stomach, and one to her neck. She also sustained a fractured rib and facial nerve injury.
The prosecutor said that both Bastek and Altaf were in a relationship between 2012 and 2015. Szymanski was one of her three kids, and the two of them had a son together.
After the couple's relationship ended in 2015, Family Court proceedings about Altaf's right to see their kid were started, which was resolved in May 2022.
When interviewed by police, Altaf said that he had no intention to stab them as he had no knife. According to him, when he entered the house Bastek started punching and kicking and he acted only in self defense.
He added that he used gloves and mask due to Covid concerns. The trial in the case continues.
India's Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, along with Colonel Sophia Qureshi and Wing Commander Vyomika Singh, holds a press briefing following India's military strikes on Pakistan, in New Delhi, India, May 7, 2025. (Photo: Reuters)
