Murder of 4-year-old Daniel Pelka may bring life sentences for mother Magdelena Luczak and stepfather Mariusz Krezolek Magdelena Luczak, who, along with Mariusz Krezolek, has been convicted of murdering 4-year-old Daniel Pelka. Photo: PA Birmingham: Numerous opportunities to save little Daniel Pelka were missed. He was extremely thin, he stole food in school and he suffered many injuries during his short life, including black eyes and a broken arm. His "callous and wretched" mother and stepfather are facing life sentences in the UK for murdering the four-year-old schoolboy who was systematically starved under the noses of his teachers and health professionals. Jurors took under four hours to unanimously convict Magdelena Luczak and Mariusz Krezolek following a nine-week trial at Birmingham Crown Court. The couple battered Daniel to death after a six-month campaign of cruelty in which he was denied food, "imprisoned" in a locked box room and force-fed salt. Both originally from Poland, the pair also forced Daniel to perform arduous punishment exercises such as squats or running, while hoodwinking teachers and doctors into believing his weight loss was due to an eating disorder. Just 22 days before his murder Daniel was seen by a community paediatrician at a time when a teaching assistant had likened his body to a ""bag of bones"." The appointment with Dr Supratik Chakraborthy was just one of a string of attempts to help Daniel, who was at the centre of a police inquiry after suffering a broken arm 14 months before his death. During his last two months of life, Daniel was also sent to school with two black eyes and observed by his class teacher to have bruising on his neck. Although action was taken to monitor and assist Daniel and his family, a serious case review into the horrifying circumstances of his death will examine why opportunities to save him were missed. It is also expected to look at why social services were not alerted to Daniel's plight during the campaign of starvation waged against him over six months. The inquiry, set up by Coventry's Safeguarding Children Board, is also expected to scrutinise the investigation launched after Daniel's left arm was broken on January 5, 2011. After Daniel was taken to Coventry's University Hospital the next day, his mother told a consultant her son may have sustained the injury while playing in the living room. Medics were informed that Daniel had been jumping off a sofa with his sibling and had complained of pain the following morning. But the consultant, who counted six bruises near the displaced ""spiral"" fracture to the upper arm, called in child protection experts due to doubts about Luczak's account and Daniel's delayed attendance at hospital. At a follow-up appointment at the same hospital on January 17, Luczak became ""very angry"" that social services had been contacted, towering over a specialist and telling her: ""In Poland when a child breaks his arm, the doctors look at the child, not the parents."" The inquiry, which saw the sibling corroborate the false account, eventually led to a police decision to take no further action, and social services closed their file on Daniel in June 2011. Between July 2011 and September 2011, when Daniel started at Little Heath Primary School, there were several further contacts between health workers and Luczak. An educational welfare officer and a school nurse also paid visits to Daniel's home on various dates between August and December 2011. Senior and junior teaching staff, including Daniel's class teacher Lisa Godfrey and Little Heath's headmaster Darren Clews, gave evidence to the trial. Godfrey told the jury how when Daniel first attended the school he was always well-dressed and looked smart and well cared for. Although he was noted to be solemn and not to be interacting with other children, Daniel seemed to be a child with the potential to be bright. But he did not make the progress that other foreign-speaking pupils made and was initially observed to be eating up to five pieces of fruit a day, in addition to ""devouring"" his packed lunch of Polish bread, a slice of meat and loose crisps. During November and December 2011, Daniel was noted to be taking food from other children's lunch boxes, a problem which became progressively worse. Godfrey initially spoke to Luczak in November about Daniel's behaviour and noted that she ""barely looked at"" her son and was very stern with him. In what became a common account to numerous professionals, Luczak claimed Daniel had an appointment with a doctor about his ""excessive"" eating habits. Luczak was spoken to again by Godfrey before the Christmas holidays about Daniel's poor attendance levels, and claimed he had been sick after ""raiding the fridge"" in the night. During his time at Little Heath, according to staff members, if Daniel was upset he would ""whimper"" rather than cry to show displeasure, Another teacher who came into contact with Daniel said she had picked him up after he fell and he felt ""like a bag of bones"." The same teacher told the court: ""He just felt small. He felt very skinny - it didn't feel like healthy slimness."" Clews told the court Daniel had been absent for 24 days during the autumn term - with further absences in January and February. As a result of the concerns about attendance, the school's learning mentor contacted an educational welfare officer who later conducted visits to Daniel's home. Following the Christmas holidays, Daniel continued to steal and scavenge for food at school, even eating half a 15-slice birthday cake. By this time his appearance had changed markedly, and he sometimes hid food in his trousers or ate in secret. On January 16 last year, Godfrey spotted four dot-shaped bruises around the right side of Daniel's neck, which were recorded in the school's concerns book. At the beginning of February, Luczak was again spoken to by school staff and assured them Daniel was seeing a doctor for his problems. At some point before February 10, when the school closed for an extended half-term, Godfrey also reported seeing Daniel with two black eyes and a scratch of his nose, and informed Clews. But Luczak was not spoken to about what Godfrey had seen and no written record was made of the apparent injury. Clews's account of the second report of an injury differed from that of Godfrey - with him describing Daniel as having a graze on the side of his head which was not serious enough to be entered into the concerns book. During the inquiry into the second incident, a child was spoken to and claimed Daniel had been pushed over by another youngster the previous day while walking in the street. On February 10 - three weeks before Daniel's death - he was seen by Chakraborthy after a referral made by the school nurse. Chakraborthy was told that Daniel, who did not speak to any adult during the appointment, had an insatiable appetite and was aggressive towards anyone who denied him food. In his evidence to the murder trial, Chakraborthy said he had no reason to suspect Luczak was lying and had considered a hypermetabolic disorder, as well as an autistic spectrum disorder, as the cause of the boy's problems. A full examination was carried out at the appointment and Daniel was recorded as being thin but not ""wasted"" with no bruising on his body or limbs. Blood tests were also carried out as a result of the appointment and a referral was made for Daniel to be further examined by a specialist consultant. After the February half-term, Daniel looked very unwell at Little Heath, seemed more placid than normal and was no longer ""inventive"" in his efforts to find food. On February 27, Daniel ""looked like an old man"" with sunken eyes and appeared to be ""sad, desperate and lonely"" as he ate dried beans in a sand-pit. Police were also called out twice to deal with drunken domestic arguments during the year that Krezolek and Luczak lived at the home where Daniel was murdered.