Isabella Stasiak

Isabella Stasiak was a thirteen month old girl from Rugby, Warwickshire, England, whose short life ended in hospital in January 2025 after she suffered catastrophic injuries at home. She has become the subject of a high profile criminal trial because of what prosecutors say was months of abuse inflicted on her by her own parents, and because of questions about why she had been returned to their care after being taken into foster care at birth.

Isabella was born in December 2023. According to evidence given in court, neither of her parents, Kinga Wydrzynska and Michal Stasiak, wanted a child, and Wydrzynska concealed her pregnancy from her own family. Isabella was placed into care shortly after she was born. Nine months before her death she was returned to live with her parents in Rugby. The couple are Polish nationals who lived separately in the town, Wydrzynska on Johnson Avenue and Stasiak on Blackwood Avenue.

Isabella died at University Hospital Coventry and Warwickshire on the morning of 7 January 2025, hours after police and paramedics were called to the family home. A post mortem examination and the evidence later put before a jury described a skull fracture, a subdural haemorrhage, fractured ribs, a broken arm, bruising and a burn covering her face. Prosecutors told Warwick Crown Court that not all of the injuries were caused on the same occasion, and that Isabella had been physically and sexually abused by both parents in the weeks before she died. Wydrzynska was arrested at the hospital and later on suspicion of murder, while Stasiak was arrested on suspicion of child neglect and, separately, on suspicion of possessing indecent images.

Isabella's death first became public through local news reports of the police investigation, and it drew wider attention once the Crown Prosecution Service confirmed charges against her parents. Wydrzynska and Stasiak have pleaded not guilty to a series of offences, including causing or allowing the death of a child, causing or allowing serious physical harm, sexual assault of a child by penetration, and cruelty to a child under 16. Wydrzynska alone denies murder. Their trial opened at Warwick Crown Court on 27 October 2026 and is expected to last around twelve weeks. Because the case is still being tried, the allegations set out by the prosecution have not yet been proven, and a jury has not reached a verdict.

Isabella's death has prompted scrutiny of the decision by local children's services to return her to her parents' care after she had already been removed once as an infant, a question likely to be examined further once the criminal proceedings conclude. There has been no public funeral or memorial service reported, and no family statement has been issued publicly. The people of Rugby and those following the case locally have reacted with shock at the details heard in court, though organised public tributes of the kind usually associated with well known adults have not taken place, reflecting both the nature of the case and its ongoing legal status.