Martyna Ogonowska, now 24, has lost her appeal against a 17-year minimum jail term for the murder of Filip Jaskiewicz, 23, in a Peterborough car park in 2018. The Court of Appeal rejected her challenge on Friday, upholding the sentence imposed by Judge Farrell QC at Cambridge Crown Court in 2019.
Ogonowska was convicted of murder after stabbing Jaskiewicz, who she said had sexually assaulted her moments before the killing. The judge accepted that Jaskiewicz had touched her sexually and been violent, but ruled that her use of a knife, which she carried for self-protection, meant the killing did not qualify as self-defence.
Her lawyers argued the minimum term should have been 12 to 13 years, not 17. However, Lord Justice Stuart-Smith, delivering the appeal court's judgment, said the sentence was not manifestly excessive, noting that despite her young age and personal mitigation, the crime was serious.
Ogonowska suffered from PTSD after being raped at age 14, but the trial judge rejected her account of that rape, a finding the appeal court said it could not overturn. The judge had acknowledged her trauma but said it did not provide a partial defence of diminished responsibility.
The campaign group Justice for Women described Ogonowska as a 'double victim of a misogynist justice system'. Her conviction appeal was previously rejected in 2023.
