05 June 2024 , 11:26
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Two women have been jailed for at least 26 years after they tortured a vulnerable man to death and filmed the horrific ordeal.
Zoe Rider, 36, and Nicola Lethbridge, 45, attacked their 60-year-old neighbour Stephen Koszyczarski in his Sheffield flat. The twisted pair subjected their neighbour, who was assessed as having learning difficulties, to a horrific ordeal and recorded their sadistic attack.
They accused Mr Koszyczarski of being a paedophile but he was innocent and the court heard friends describe a “kind and gentle” man with a “heart of gold”. Today Judge Sarah Wright told Sheffield Crown Court how the pair humiliated and terrified Mr Koszyczarski on August 9, last year, he died from his injuries two days later.
Lethbridge sobbed in the dock while the judge described her and Rider’s depraved treatment of Mr Koszyczarski. Judge Wright said: “You were both clearly fuelled by drugs and probably alcohol.
“Having heard the evidence in the case I have absolutely no doubt that you went into Stephen’s flat together in order to threaten, attack and rob him, no doubt to finance further drug taking.
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The court heard Stephen Koszyczarski had been a kind man with a heart of gold (Yorkshire Live/MEN Media)“For whatever reason, during the course of that robbery, you decided jointly to accuse Stephen completely spuriously and without any reason to do so of being a paedophile.”
She told them: “You set about him in the most brutal, heartless and despicable manner. You launched a vicious and extremely violent joint attack upon him. You exposed his genitals, threatened to mutilate him and shouted obscenities at him. You singularly failed to listen to his denials of the accusation or to offer him any compassion when he was clearly injured.”
The judge said: “The purpose of your attack was to steal from him and to humiliate, terrify and hurt him. You left him clearly disorientated, injured and bleeding with 22 separate injuries about his face, head and body.”
The judge also stated: "During the course of the extensive police investigation, no information was uncovered he had had any children at his address of any connection with any paedophile interest or activity at all. He was described as having a heart of gold. His good friend Mary describes him as a special man who was nothing but kind and gentle to her children while growing up, and who now speak of him fondly," Yorkshire Live reports.
"No sentence I impose can ever compensate Stephen's family and friends for his loss. The manner of his death and the very upsetting recording of part of the incident is very traumatic for them and they will have to live with that for the rest of their lives."
Rider and Lethbridge, both of Fraser Drive, Woodseats, Sheffield, were found guilty of murder and robbery earlier this year. They were each jailed for 13 years for the robbery of Mr Koszyczarski, to run concurrently with their life terms.