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ZUZANNA ZOMMER MURDER: Leeds street scared of weirdo with dark past
They came to Britain with hopes of a new and better life for themselves and their two children.
Polish immigrants Robert and Matgorzata Zommer had a special spring in their step as they walked their nine-year-old son Mikotej to the local primary school, Brownhills, for his first day at his new school in Leeds.
Just six hours later their hopes and happiness were shattered. They returned home from the city centre, where they were looking for work, to discover their 14-year-old daughter, Zuzanna, savagely slain in the bedroom of their back-to-back terrace in Harehills.
Zuzanna, who was waiting for a place to be found at a local school, was brutally killed by next-door-but-one neighbour – convicted rapist Michael Clark.
The evil paedophile, who was on the sex offender register, had wormed his way into the friendship of the Zommer family who lived two doors away in Compton Row, Harehills.
The Zommers had lived there only a matter of weeks and had no real friends in the neighbourhood - other than 39-year-old Clark.
He was clearly grooming his teenage victim as he sought to win the affections of her parents by driving them around Leeds and taking them on shopping trips. He even took them to last year's Leeds Carnival and was caught on camera with his arm around Zuzanna on one of the rides.
Clark had offered to go on the ride with her because her father didn't fancy going on the ride.
Other neighbours had no time for powerfully-built Clark whom they regarded as a glue-sniffing weirdo.
But, Robert and Matgorzata never had any suspicions about the neighbour who was being so friendly towards them. They had no idea that partially-deaf Clark, who was born in Scunthorpe had a string of convictions for sex offences and violence stretching back 20 years.
By trade a steel fixer, Clark had been jailed in 1988 after he attacked a man in a pub in the Lincoln area, smashing him with a broken pint glass and leaving injuries that required 37 stitches.
In 1991 he was jailed at Grimsby for seven years for repeatedly raping a woman he had picked up in a nightclub.
He also received a five-year jail sentence in 1999 for attacking and sexually assaulting a woman at lodgings they both lived in, in Grimsby. He forced the woman upstairs before assaulting her in front of her young son.
Clark had been jailed in March 2004 for two offences of assault against women: he had originally been charged with attempted rape. He was released in May 2005 on parole but was recalled to prison eight days alter after being found naked, under the influence of glue in a public place near his home town.
Clark, who had a long history of solvent abuse dating back almost 20 years, was then released from prison in February 2006 – but was again recalled to jail for failing to comply with the conditions of his parole.
He was finally released from jail on November 16, 2006 and quickly headed for Leeds. He set up home in Compton Row, privately renting the back-to-back house.
Zuzanna's father Robert had moved to the UK and lived in Leeds round about the same time and also moved into Compton Row. He was joined by his wife and two children nine months later, in the high summer of 2007. However, during the interim, Clark showed no interest in befriending Mr Zommer. It was only after his wife, son and daughter Zuzanna joined him that he took any interest.
Before his family joined him, Mr Zommer had worked as a computer operator at a concrete company in Castleford. However, at the time his daughter was savagely murdered he was looking for a new job.
One the day of her murder Zuzanna had been playing solitaire on her laptop after her parents left her alone.
It was not long before Michael Clark – who had even bought himself a cat because he discovered the teenager loved them – arrived at her door. After killing Zuzanna, Clark then went to Blackpool for the day, desperately trying to set up an alibi for himself. But his account of his movements on that fateful day were quickly disproved by detectives.
Even when he appeared at Sheffield Crown Court, Clark still maintained his innocence and laid the blame at the door of "someone else" who must have stolen and then worn his bloodstained clothing before killing Zuzanna.
Clark also claimed it had to be someone with access to his home and even named a former friend as "someone who has a key to my house". He claimed that same person must have left Zuzanna's blood which forensic scientists found on the cellar door at his home.
But, that story didn't add up when the court heard that one of the socks Clark was wearing at the time of his arrest was also stained with Zuzanna's blood.
Today, as Clark was put behind bars, neighbours spoke of the "weirdo" in their midst – and their horror at the savage murder.
Mother-of-three Caroline Kay, 34, said: "When Clark first moved into the street he was a bit over-friendly. He used to come into our garden asking if we wanted any help with anything. There always seemed something strange about him, though. Then we found out he was a glue-sniffer and he took a lot of interest in kids. When he was around, it was never far away.
"At one point he offered to take my 10-year-old daughter swimming. We refused."
Caroline added that Clark used to spend a lot of time standing at his doorstep just waving his arms about and doing strange things, but they put that down to his glue-sniffing.
She added that her 10-year-old daughter had played with Zuzanna Zommer a bit, and on one occasion the Polish teenager had slept over at their house. "She was a really lovely kid," she added.
Ms Kay voiced the feelings of other neighbours when she added: "Clark was creepy – probably with him being on glue - and would just stand there, staring. We were horrified at what he did to poor Zuzanna, but also shocked when we heard about his background. No-one had the faintest idea that a convicted rapist was living in our street."
Another neighbour revealed that on the day before he murdered Zuzanna, Clark had tried to drag a girl into his house but had been prevented by the girl's elder sister.
Ms Kay added: "What Clark did is indescribable. He should be put away for the rest of his life but that isn't good enough for him, for what he did. If they could hang him, that would be better".
Today, the house where Zuzanna was murdered is still unoccupied – a 'for let' sign is still in the garden.
Zuzanna's family are back in Poland. The teenager's father Robert returned to the UK to give evidence at the trial in Sheffield but immediately returned to his home country. His wife had been unable to face returning to the country where her daughter was killed.
Det Supt Bill Shackleton, who led the murder investigation, described Clark as "a very, very, very dangerous man".
He added: "The Zommer family had high hopes of starting a new life in this country. But their hopes all ended in this terrible tragedy. My heart and that of the entire investigation team goes out to Zuzanna's family".
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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