Woman Who Fatally Stabbed Attacker During Assault Fails to Overturn 17-Year Sentence
Martyna Ogonowska, who was 18 when she fatally stabbed a man during a violent and sexual assault, has lost her legal challenge to reduce her 17-year prison sentence.
Ogonowska, a young mother, was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for the murder of 23-year-old Filip Jaskiewicz.
The killing occurred in a Peterborough car park in 2018. During her trial, she said she carried the knife used in the stabbing for protection, having been a victim of child sexual abuse in the past.
Evidence presented in court revealed that Jaskiewicz had physically assaulted her—grabbing her neck with such force it forced her to the ground—before subjecting her to sexual assault.
It was at this point Ogonowska stabbed him.
Presiding over the original trial at Cambridge Crown Court, Judge Farrell QC acknowledged that Jaskiewicz had been physically and sexually aggressive.
However, he ruled that the incident did not meet the criteria for lawful self-defence, largely because Ogonowska had brought a weapon to the scene.
While recognizing her mental health challenges and history of trauma, he found the murder conviction appropriate.
On Friday, the Court of Appeal upheld her sentence.
An earlier appeal against her conviction was dismissed in 2023.
Her legal team had argued that a more appropriate sentence would have been between 12 and 13 years.
But in the appellate court’s decision, Lord Justice Stuart-Smith said that while the sentence was severe for someone of Ogonowska’s background and age, the gravity of the crime meant the trial judge had acted within reason.
“We are ultimately unpersuaded that the sentence imposed by the judge can be described as manifestly excessive,” he stated.
The court had also heard details of Ogonowska’s previous trauma, including suffering from PTSD following a reported rape in 2015 when she was 14.
However, no charges were brought against the alleged perpetrator. During her own trial, Judge Farrell accepted the prosecution’s view—partially supported by Facebook messages—that the sexual encounter had been consensual, despite Ogonowska’s young age at the time.
Advocacy group Justice for Women has labeled Ogonowska a “double victim” of a system biased against women.
Harriet Wistrich, director of the Centre for Women’s Justice, criticized how the case was handled and questioned whether prosecutors had properly accounted for rape myths when the complainant became the accused.
Nevertheless, Lord Justice Stuart-Smith supported Farrell’s findings, saying the trial judge had been in the best position to assess the facts and credibility of the claims.
“The judge’s decision to reject her version of events regarding the alleged rape was difficult but justifiable,” he noted.
He added that although the prior trauma influenced her mental state, it did not legally qualify as diminished responsibility.
Farrell had already reduced the minimum term from the 25-year starting point, considering various mitigating factors including her relocation from Poland at a young age, experiences of bullying, postnatal depression, and the broader challenges of adapting to life in the UK.
The Court of Appeal concluded that the sentencing judge had carefully weighed the mitigating circumstances before settling on a 17-year minimum term.