Boxer Lukasz Stachura found guilty of murdering Kamil Leszczynski in Bedfordshire

A body-builder choked a former warehouse worker to death using his vest before dumping his body in a field, a court heard.

Lukasz Stachura, 40, who went by the nickname Pompa meaning ’Pumped’, because he worked out and boxed, murdered Kamil Leszczynski last summer after taking a dislike to the 33-year-old.

Mr Leszczynski was described to Luton Crown Court as a quiet man who never looked for trouble.

His body was found in a ditch at Valley View Farm near the village of Carlton in north Bedfordshire on 1 July last year.

The former shoe warehouse, of Wellingborough, died from having his airways blocked by the gag. His wrists had been bound by a phone cable.

Prosecutor Eloise Marshall QC said the gag had been made from a knotted vest that was found to contain Stachura’s DNA.

Ms Marshall said: “Mr Stachura murdered Kamil Leszczynski and deposited his body where it was found some days later.

“A pathologist indicated his airway had been obstructed by a gag which had forced his tongue back. A head injury suggested he may have been unconscious either prior to or at the time the gag was put in his mouth.”

Stachura, of Gold Street, Wellingborough, who ran a cleaning and odd job company, denied murdering Mr Leszczynski between 26 June and 2 July last year, but was found guilty by the jury.

Mr Leszczynski had worked in a shoe warehouse, but at the time he died was not working and was known as a street drinker in Wellingborough.

Stachura, a Polish national who had come to the UK in 2004, had told a friend he did not like the victim.

On the day before he disappeared, Stachura and the victim had been seen outside a shop in Wellingborough. “He [Stachura] was seen to be violent and aggressive towards him,” said the prosecutor.

In the witness boxy Stachura said he had never had an argument with Mr Leszczynski, but said he knew him by sight in Wellingborough.

He said: “I saw him when I was delivering food and a few times I spoke to him. We have never been together for so long to have an argument.”

He claimed to have spent much of the time of the murder drinking with a friend, adding: "I don’t know how much I had drunk, but it was a lot.

"It was beer mostly. From what I remember there might have been a bottle of whisky.”

After the verdict Judge Lynn Tayton QC remanded Stachura in custody.

She told him: “The jury found you guilty of murder. There is only one sentence I can impose: that is a life sentence.”

The judge adjourned the case before sentence, which will take place after 22 April.