A man who killed his toddler son has told jurors how the boy woke when he shot him in the head.
Lukasz Czapla, 41, told how he also smothered two-year-old Julius with a pillow and stabbed him with a skewer.
Czapla said he assaulted Julius because he had decided to end his own life and did not want to leave the child alone.
The youngster had been dropped at the former Fife College IT technician’s Edinburgh flat earlier in the weekend and had been playing Lego in the hours before his death.
Czapla told Edinburgh High Court he had cut his own wrists and shot himself in the chest with a gas powered air pistol, as well as taking pills and alcohol.
He told jurors how he also also took wine and all the medication which doctors had given him for poor mental health because he “didn’t want to live” after a text exchange with his former partner, Julius’ mother, Patrycja Szczesniak.
The court heard Czapla then thought about how he discovered his father’s dead body when he was a young boy living in Poland.
He said he did not want his son to have the same upsetting experience.
Shot toddler in head
Czapla started crying as he told his agent, Iain McSporran QC: “I know it sounds not very logical but in a sense I completely gave up and I didn’t see any point in living.
“I thought about him and I thought about me, that I was dying and I wouldn’t be there to support him.
“He relies upon me so much. I always wanted to be here to provide for him and support him. I was scared.
“I didn’t want to leave him alone. I thought about my father.
“I thought that Julius would discover me like this and he would have nobody to support him and I thought I would have to take him with me.
“I did not want him alone in a terrible life. I shot him in the head.”
He said he thought he had killed his son but instead, the toddler woke.
The court heard Czapla then smothered him with a pillow and stabbed him with a skewer.
Admitted killing
The evidence emerged during proceedings before judge Lord Beckett.
Czapla has admitted killing Julius in November 2020 at his home in Muirhouse but prosecutors declined to accept his bid to plead guilty to culpable homicide and he is being tried for murder.
Czapla says he was of diminished responsibility at the time of the killing.
He told the court the had experienced mental health difficulties throughout his life.
He emigrated from Poland and lived in Cheltenham before coming to Edinburgh.
He worked as an IT technician but experienced a “breakdown” in 2018.
He said he started a relationship with Julius’s mum in 2012.
He said he had “the best time of my life” when Julius was born and he and Patrycja had a “fantastic time” showing Julius “castles” and “playparks”.
However, the couple split in June 2021 and things between them were a “bit toxic” and she moved out.
Suicide attempt
They met at weekends but he became suspicious Patrycja was not caring for Julius properly.
“I realised that something that was going wrong with my son and Patrycja seemed not willing to talk about it and I become quite anxious and suspicious about it.
At 9.25pm on November 20 2021, Patrycja sent him a text in which she told Czapla that “the guy” she was seeing had not yet met Julius but she expected they would meet at Christmas-time.
He said his thinking got into a “vicious circle” and he decided the only way to solve his issues was to kill himself.
“Everything was overwhelming me.
He sent a text message to Patrycja which included: “I won’t be raising my son from a distance and cry every single time we say goodbye apart from that you’re raising him with another guy.
“I’m losing him every day the only person I really care about.”
‘He was was the love of my life’
He denied killing Julius to “punish” his former partner or out of “hatred or wickedness against Julius”.
He said: “I have nothing against Julius. He was the love of my life. I had nothing to punish him for.”
Czapla is accused of murdering his son on November 20 or 21 2020 by assaulting him and repeatedly striking him on the body with a skewer, repeatedly discharging an air pistol at him and repeatedly shooting him in the head and placing a pillow on his face and asphyxiating the child.
The trial continues.
