Man found guilty of murder in Harrogate after beating his friend to death

Man arrested after police track down stolen car in Ripon

Vitalijus Koreiva, 37, a Lithuanian national, denied murdering his friend and fellow countryman Gracijus Balciauskas, 41, at a flat in Harrogate, but today, Friday, July 15, a jury found him guilty following a three-week trial.

Koreiva’s friend Jaroslaw Rutowicz, 39, who was also inside the flat at the time of the “brutal” attack on December 20 last year, was found guilty of manslaughter but not guilty of murder.

During the trial, the jury heard that Koreiva repeatedly punched, kicked and stamped on Mr Balciauskas after throwing him to the floor inside the flat they shared in Mayfield Grove following a weekend’s binge-drinking, Leeds Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Peter Moulson QC said the merciless attack left a blood-soaked Mr Balciauskas with bruises covering his face and hands.

As his life ebbed away, Rutowicz filmed him as he was lying dazed and in pain but still alive.

Rutowicz then went out to buy alcohol and cigarettes following the attack, allegedly with the victim’s bank card and apparently under orders from Koreiva, with whom he shared a drink after they realised their friend had died.

The pair bought whiskey and cigarettes from the Bocian Polish shop next door and then purchased more alcohol from the BP petrol station in Pannal after taking a taxi there.

Mr Balciauskas suffered multiple injuries to his head and body from “blunt-force” trauma, including a fractured rib, ruptured spleen and bruised and black eyes. His internal injuries proved fatal.

After wrapping his body in a rug, Koreiva fell asleep and Rutowicz went to the Asda supermarket on Bower Road.

An employee found him sitting on a wall outside the store at about 11pm, looking “agitated”.

Rutowicz called police from outside the supermarket and told an operator: “The guy, he’s dead. No, it was an accident. We drink something.”

Police later found Mr Balciauskas’s body wrapped in the rug.

Rutowicz, of no fixed address, and Koreiva, of Mayfield Grove, were arrested on suspicion of murder.

The court was shown harrowing films found on Rutowicz’s phone, which were recorded at 5am and 7am on December 20.

They showed the two men trying to give the semi-conscious victim cigarettes and something to drink.

Police later retrieved a photo of the victim taken at 12.04pm when he was apparently dead and wrapped in the rug.

Speaking through a Polish translator, Rutowicz said he wanted to call police and an ambulance when Mr Balciauskas was still alive, but Koreiva threatened to kill him too if he dialled 999.

Rutowicz, who came to the UK in 2004 and moved to Harrogate in 2019, developed a friendship with Koreiva and Mr Balciauskas through work. T

he three men ended up living together at 6 Mayfield Grove.

Rutowicz, who worked as a bricklayer and at a farm in South Yorkshire, said tensions flared after Koreiva shaved off some of Mr Balciauskas’s hair as a practical joke while he was sleeping.

Koreiva then flew into a rage during a chess game with Mr Balciauskas and punched him about four times to the face.

Rutowicz said: “He started to beat him with his fist and with the heel of his foot.”

He described the beating as “brutal”.

Mr Balciauskas was fading out of consciousness, his head was “drooping” and his pulse was faint, said Rutowicz.

He said that Koreiva wanted to cover up the crime and suggested wrapping Mr Balciauskas’s body up in a rug and burying him.

Mr Moulson QC said that nearly 18 hours had elapsed without either man calling an ambulance as Mr Balciauskas was lying bloodied and barely conscious on the floor.

Koreiva said he and Rutowicz had a drink together after they realised their friend was dead “to give our last respect for Gracijus, a drink for our friend”.

He said Mr Balciauskas was a “good man”, adding: “He did nothing wrong and he didn’t deserve this”.

Koreiva initially told police he had seen Rutowicz strike Mr Balciauskas twice, but later told the court this wasn’t true.

Koreiva admitted the alternative charge of manslaughter in that he had beaten Mr Balciauskas to death when he was “out of control” on alcohol, but denied murder on the grounds of lack of intent and diminished responsibility due to his “chronic” alcohol problem which he claimed had affected his thinking.

Rutowicz denied both murder and manslaughter.

The court heard about Koreiva’s chequered life, blighted by alcohol abuse, from his early days in Lithuania to his time in Germany in his 20s when he became embroiled with a drug-dealing gang which resulted in a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence.

He served part of that sentence before being deported back to Lithuania.

He then moved to Northern Ireland in 2010 after purportedly being dragged into a forest by drug dealers in Lithuania and “beaten up with planks”.

He struck up a relationship with a woman in Ireland and they had a child together, but then split up and Koreiva moved to Harrogate in 2017 where he initially lived with his sister in a failed attempt to get sober.

He found work with Pizza Hut in Harrogate but lost a series of jobs because of his rampant alcohol abuse and the loss of his motoring licence following a drink-drive conviction.

He had lately been working at the Morrison’s factory in Flaxby as a forklift-truck driver and developed a friendship with Rutowicz and Mr Balciauskas.

Judge Rodney Jameson QC adjourned sentencing of the two men to a date to be fixed.

The killing of Mr Balciauskas was the second murder in Mayfield Grove in the space of eight months.

In November last year, Daniel Ainsley, 24, was jailed for life for stabbing father-of-two Mark Wolsey to death in a vicious knife attack inside another flat in the notorious street, which has been plagued by violence, drugs and anti-social behaviour.

County Council says there's no turning back on Harrogate Gateway project