Category: Thame news

THAME firefighters have extended their appreication for the support of the the people of Thame, who helped them raise over

A WOMAN in her 50’s was air-lifted to hospital last Saturday morning, after being cut from her mini, which hit a tree just outside Chinnor.
Two fire crews from Thame assisted a Rescue Tender for Kidlington, to extricate the woman who, it is thought, had serious but not life threatening injuries.
The incident happened at the juction with the Bledlow road and Hill Top Lane, Chinnor.

Photo: Thame firecrew demonstrate cutting a driver from a crashed car during Thame Show – a skill they were called on to practice for real last Saturday.

A TOP international chef has agreed to officially turn on Thame’s Christmas lights this year.
Raymond Blanc, whose company owns the Eight at The Thatch restaurant in Thame, as well as Le Manoir Aux Quatre Saisons Hotel and restaurant at Milton Common, accepted an invitation from Thame Town Council to attend Thame’s Christmas event which will be on Friday, December 5.

FRIENDS of Thame and District Citizens Advice Bureau, which is a newly registered charity (No 1117782), held a St Patricks Day Quiz at Lord Williams Lower School which raised a fantastic

A cleaner, who murdered her 95 year-old employer, and then embroiled her own son, his girlfriend and another aqaintance in covering up her crime and disposing of the the body, has been given a Life sentence.
At Oxford Crown Court today (7/3), Jolanta Kalinowska, aged 41, of Cavendish Avenue, Ealing, was found guilty of murdering Thea Zaudy on Wednesday, July 11, 2007, at the victim’s home in Notting Hill Gate, London.

The 95-year-old?s burned body was found in a field near Thame on Friday, July 13.

Kalinowska was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum 20 years tariff. Her son, Adrian Lis, aged 23, also from Cavendish Avenue, Ealing, was found guilty of assisting an offender in the commission of murder and sentenced to four years imprisonment. It was he who is alleged to have dragged the suitcase with Mrs Zaudy’s body in it, to a compost heap in a field and set fire to it.

Co-defendants, Monika Sienkiewicz, aged 18, and Lucasz Gajda, 25, both from the Ealing area, were found not guilty of assisting an offender in the commission of murder.

In passing sentence, Judge Hall spoke of “overwhelming evidence” that Kalinowsica had murdered “a defenceless, elderly, frail lady who was otherwise very much ‘on the ball.’ You then went out and spent all her money on a shopping spree. Thereafter, you have been devious and manipulative in getting other people to help you. You made the arrangements for the parcelling up of Mrs Zaudy’s dead body in a suitcase, for taking it on the ‘underground’, putting it in a car and having it driven to Oxfordshire and there, setting it alight.
“It was obvious to me that during your evidence, you have been unwilling to accept the horror of what you did.”

To Adrian Lis, Judge Hall said: “What a terrible thing for a son to hear his mother sentenced to life for Murder! There is no doubt that she was the driving force behind this terrible catalogue of events. You helped as can be seen on the CCTV images, which showed you dragging the suitcase – an image those of us who saw it will never forget.
“You are no angel and I am not sure how much of a devil you are.”

Maureen Daniels, a close friend of Mrs Zaudy, has released the following statement:

?Thea Zaudy fled Nazi persecution and arrived in 1939 from Germany and settled in London. She married and after the war they started a family business, which she continued to run after her husband?s death in 1965.
?When she gave up the shop, she maintained her independence by working in a London department store for another 13 years until she retired at the age of 74.
?After her retirement she continued to enjoy walking and travelling. She played bridge regularly up to the time of her death. Although many of her friends were housebound, she was in constant contact with them and is sorely missed by everyone. She was a proud, kind person, who did not want to be a burden to her friends or anyone else.
?Justice has been done for such a callous crime, perhaps motivated by greed. It is of little comfort to those who knew, respected and loved Thea, but it is justice.?

Neighbour, Tim Jones, said: “I knew Thea Zaudy for 20 years. She faced the challenges of old-age with dignity and courage but was frail. This frailty was taken advantage of to deceive Thea Zaudy and lead to her murder and the macabra deceptions that followed. There is now an empty chair at our residents’ and Bridge meetings.”

The judge, Julian Hall, praised the police investigation and the way the technical and other evidence was presented.

Acting Detective Supt Rob Mason, who led the investigation for Thames Valley Police, said: ?This was a horrific murder of a 95-year-old lady, who had survived considerable adversity in her life only taken by to have it taken by those she trusted.
?It was a complex and painstaking investigation that has been traumatic for all concerned, an investigation that involved extensive mobile phone work and the viewing of hundreds of hours of CCTV. Using this footage, as well as phone and travel records and the usage of Mrs Zaudy?s debit card, we were able to track the defendants through the underground system and then to the site in Milton Common where they attempted to dispose of Mrs Zaudy?s body.
?The forensic work undertaken by scenes of crime officers and forensic scientists was very difficult in the circumstances, but they were able to provide evidence that was ultimately central to the prosecution.
?The investigation moved at considerable speed. The enquiry progressed from the initial discovery of a badly burnt body to the arrest of the offenders within five days. We are very grateful for the assistance of the media with initial appeals, which helped us identify Mrs Zaudy.?

THIS is a Ringmaster message from Thames Valley Police; There have been two incidents, possible distraction burglaries in Thame. Both incidents occurred Wednesday 5th March, between 11:45am & 11:55am.
The first incident was in Cotmore Close, where the offender entered the property whilst the aggrieved was in the garden and stole a purse. He is described as a White male, aged approx. 40 years and of large build.

The second incident was in Cotmore Gardens, where two suspect white males were seen in the back garden of the property looking around. When approached by the aggrieved, they said they were from CID, but offered no identification. The two males were described as being in their 40’s, one stocky build, the other of medium build, both had an accent.

Please be extra vigilant and keep an eye out for any elderly or vulnerable neighbours. If you see any suspicious people in the area, or have any information relating to this message, please call the police on 08458 505 505 and quote URN 527 of 05/03/08.

THE jury is still out this evening in the case of Jolanta Kalinowsica and her three associates, at the end of a two and a half-week long trial in connection with the murder and attempted destruction of her alleged victim’s body.
During his two-hour summing up of the case, judge Julian Hall recalled what has been called, ‘a tangled web’ of evidence on which the jury must decide whether M/s Kalinowsica is guilty of the murder of her employer, 94 year-old Thea Zaudy, and whether Kalinowsica’s son, Adrian Lis, his girl friend, Monilca Sienkiewizs, and Lukasz Gajda assisted her in covering up her crime.
The jury began their deliberations around 11.45pm today, (06/03). They will resume tomorrow when the court will reconvene at 10am.

THAME Town Council’s Planning committee has rejected a revised design for a new library to be built on the site of the Pied Pedaller toy shop in North Street.
Councillors thought that Oxfordshire County Council had gone some way to addressing the town council’s objections, but, in the words of Cllr Nigel Champken-Woods, still felt the design ‘horrendous’, including too much glass in the frontage and that it was out of keeping with the street scene.
Cllr Champken-Woods accused the applicant of trying to fool the committee by submitting a pen and ink drawing, which he said, made it look as though the design had been softened.
“We want a library, not a greenhouse!” he said.

THE family and friends of Mick Inceman, who was killed last Tuesday while riding his motorcycle to work, have issued the following tribute:
“Mick was tragically killed in a road traffic accident last Tuesday, while riding his motorbike to work.
“Mick and his fianc

LAWYERS for both the prosecution and the defence in the trial of four people associated with the murder and burning of the body of Thea Zaudy, have today been presenting statements of their cases.
Nicholas Dean, for the prosecution, told the jury that they might think that the evidence they had heard from Jolanta Kalinowsica and her son, Adrian Lis, had “bordered on the surreal.”
Kalinowsica, he maintained, conjured up a picture of her alleged victim “as a woman of mystery, who entertained sinister visitors with envelopes stuffed full of cash, who had been losing a lot of money at Bridge and who had met a mysterious death.”
Someone, he continued, who generated “industrial amounts of laundry, including curtains, towels and bedding because she literally foamed at the mouth with blood, bathed her wounds in Katinowsica’s urine and ate bananas in bed which stained her bed clothes!”
Against this, he said, other evidence from Mrs Zaudy’s friends suggested that she was infact a tidy, fastidious person who only played cards for pennies.

Mr Dean suggested that what he called “this illusion” created by Kalinowsica “was designed to mislead the police and to distract them away from her.”

He asked the jury to consider, what he called, a number of coincidences, i.e. that Kalinowsica said that she had never travelled out of London before, but that the first time she did, to a spot in Oxfordshire on July 12, 2007, it is close to where her employer was dead in a suitcase – a suitcase that just happened to be vertually identical to one she, Kalinowsica bought, four hours earlier.

Kalinowsica’s defence statement included the questions:
Why would a woman, described as ‘clever’ by the prosecution, and someone with knowledge of the criminal courts, leave Mrs Zaudy’s body overnight in the old lady’s flat, where it could have been discovered?
Why would she wait until after her and Sienkiewicz had done another cleaning job the next morning, for which there is evidence, before going back to Mrs Zaudy’s and cleaning up?

Defence statements on behalf of the other three defendants, Monilca Sienkiewicz, Adrian Lis and Lukasz Gajda, included the following:

That Adrian Lis, aware that a trip had been planned for Legoland, had no reason to doubt his mother’s (Kalinowsica) explanation for buying the case and that there is no evidence to prove that he ever looked in the case, taking for granted his mother’s explanation that it contained washing.

That Monilca Sienkiewicz, who had, as the evidence presented suggested, “a toxic” relationship with Kalinowsica, was unlikely to be trusted by Kalinowsica to be told the truth about what she had done, and to be asked to help her conceal the body in a suitcase.

That if Lukasz Gajda DID know what he was being asked to transport, why would he not pick the others and the suitcase up from Mrs Zaudy’s apartment at Kelvin Court, making it unnecessary to drag the body around the London tube system? Also, if he had known, presumably he would not have turned up at Ealing Broadway with his boot already full and a car low in fuel?

The judge will give his summing up tomorrow before the jury retires to consider its verdicts.

Photo: Ealing Broadway tube station where defendant, Lukasz Gajda, is alleged to have picked up three friends and a suitcase containing the dead body of Thea Zaudy and driven it to a field near Thame, where it was set fire to.