MAN BRUTALLY MURDERED A PENSIONER
Phillip Fraczek beat a “kind and gentle” pensioner to death after being confronted for hanging around elderly residents’ flats.Fraczek, then aged 20, sparked alarm as he tried several door handles at the flats in Plaistow Road, West Ham, at lunchtime on May 15, 2024.
He fell asleep on the floor, and just over an hour later, 79-year-old Franklin Agbotui woke him and asked him to leave.
Neighbours then heard banging noises and screams coming from the pensioner’s flat.
Polish national Fraczek was tackled by police officers two streets away, headbutting one in the jaw as they arrested him.
Mr Agbotui was found badly injured and surrounded by broken furniture, and died five days later in hospital.
Fraczek, now 22, of no fixed address, was jailed for life with a minimum of 20 years and four months at Snaresbrook Crown Court, having admitted murder and assault of an emergency worker at an earlier hearing.
Detective Superintendent Kelly Allen said: "Franklin was known to friends and neighbours as a kind and gentle man, often seen tending the flowers in their shared garden.
He had a long and successful career in the Merchant Navy and had earned a happy retirement.
This was horrifically taken from him by Fraczek – whose unprovoked and savage attack has rocked this community."
