A man has been sentenced to life in prison, with a minimum term of 22 years, for the murder of 21-year-old sex worker Daria Pionko in Leeds.
Leeds crown court heard how 24-year-old Lewis Pierre wore steel-capped boots when he carried out a “sustained and forceful” attack on Pionko three days before Christmas last year in the UK’s first managed red-light district, in the Holbeck area of the city.
The scheme introduced by Leeds city council in 2014 allows sex workers to operate in a designated area on the edge of the city centre between 7pm and 7am without fear of being arrested. Following the verdict, a community safety partnership spokesman said the project was under review.
Pierre was captured on CCTV walking towards an area of wasteland with Pionko at around 10.40pm, before being spotted leaving the scene alone less than five minutes later.
Blood matching Pionko’s was later discovered on a pair of steel-capped boots and a cardigan found at Pierre’s home. Although Pierre admitted robbery and manslaughter, he denied murder, but the jury of 10 women and two men took less than two hours to find Pierre guilty of murder on Monday.
Pionko, who had moved to the UK from Łódź in Poland 10 months previously, was found lying face down and lifeless by her housemate Karolina Znajda, who was also a sex worker.
Pionko had suffered serious injuries to her face, head, neck and body. Znajda described her friend’s face as having been “massacred” and the postmortem concluded that Pionko had died within 30 minutes of the attack.
Pierre, who was working as an assistant to a heavy goods driver, bought a meal of kebab meat and chips, four cans of drink and cigarettes with the £80 he stole from Pionko. Colleagues say he also turned up to work the next day in possession of cannabis.
