Roberts Buncis murder: Marcel Grzeszcz, 15, sentenced for killing

A teenage boy who killed his 12-year-old friend in a frenzied attack after luring him to a woodland has been sentenced for murder.

Roberts Buncis was stabbed more than 70 times in the "brutal and prolonged" assault in Boston, Lincolnshire, just days before his 13th birthday.

Jurors at Lincoln Crown Court heard Roberts' wounds were "consistent with an attempt to remove the head".

Marcel Grzeszcz, 15, was ordered to serve a minimum term of 17 years.

Jurors took less than two hours to convict Grzeszcz, who was 14 at the time of the attack in the Fishtoft area on 12 December 2020.

Grzeszcz, who can be named in reports for the first time after anonymity restrictions were lifted, persuaded Roberts to meet by offering him £50 to sell cannabis.

During the trial he insisted he had acted in self-defence and had "lost control" when Roberts, whom he accused of bringing a knife to the scene, tried to stab him.

Prosecutor Mary Loram QC told the court there was no evidence Roberts had been armed, and the attack showed a "significant degree of pre-meditation and planning".

The number of injuries and significant suffering suggested Roberts' death was "more than a simple stabbing", she said.

Mr Justice Baker, sentencing, rejected Grzeszcz's claim about the knife and said he had not yet shown "any true remorse".

During the "savage and brutal attack" on Roberts, he said, the defendant had made "a determined effort to remove his head before leaving his body for others to find".

After the killing, the judge said, Grzeszcz made attempts to conceal the crime and dispose of evidence by burning his clothing and sending messages claiming he never met Roberts on the night he was killed.

The judge warned Grzeszcz he may never be released.

In a statement read to the court, Roberts' father Edgars Buncis said he felt "empty" after his son's murder.

"This is all wrong. No father should have to bury his son," he said.

"Nothing is a reason for this. I have lost my destination, and my purpose. My life is in a cemetery."

Speaking after the sentencing, Det Ch Insp Richard Myszczyszyn said the "utterly senseless" killing would be "remembered by officers and staff as one of the worst and saddest cases we have ever dealt with".

"The level of violence, and that it involved children, makes it almost incomprehensible," he said.

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