Thug who helped kicked a total stranger to death sues Home Office trends now
The young man under a baseball cap, with the fearsome-looking canine companion, is 21-year-old Lukas Makula. And the pair of them are well matched.
His pet, an American Bulldog-type, is one of a breed responsible for several fatal attacks on children and adults in Britain in recent years. And Makula also has blood on his hands.
In 2017, aged 15, he and two other teenage thugs kicked a man to the ground in a vicious, premeditated street robbery in Leicester city centre.
'They hunted him down as group' and 'took evident pride' in what they did, the trial judge said.
John Donovan was targeted for a few bottles of beer he had bought from a supermarket to drink while watching a football match at home on TV.
The young man under a baseball cap, with the fearsome-looking canine companion, is 21-year-old Lukas Makula (pictured). And the pair of them are well matched
John Donovan's killers were originally charged with murder but the prosecution accepted an alternative plea of manslaughter. Makula (pictured) served just two years of a five-year sentence before being released in 2020
Mr Donovan, 64, a university graduate who had just retired from the local council, where he was a highly respected and popular figure in the housing department, suffered a thrombosis after being taken to hospital, which led to a fatal heart attack.
In her impact statement, his mother, now in her 90s, said her son 'wouldn't hurt a fly' and told how she stayed at his bedside 'until the machines stopped bleeping'.
His killers were originally charged with murder but the prosecution accepted an alternative plea of manslaughter. Makula served just two years of a five-year sentence before being released in 2020.
Yet this is not simply a story about 'Wild West' Britain or a justice system that too often seems weighted in favour of the guilty. Increasingly, those who appear in the dock ruthlessly exploit the law, aided and abetted — usually at taxpayers' expense — by human rights and 'loophole' lawyers.
There can be few more shameless examples of such defendants than Lukas Makula.
You might have thought that, after serving such a short stretch over the death of an innocent, defenceless man, he would have counted his blessings and got on with his life.
But instead, Slovakian-born Makula has sought to portray himself as the real victim.
He is suing the Home Office for compensation, it emerged this week.
He claims the electronic ankle tag he had to wear to ensure he observed an 8pm-8am curfew at an address in Leicester after he was freed on licence 'deprived him of his ability to socialise with his peers' — those are the exact words used in his statement of 'facts & grounds' filed at the High Court — which meant he 'spent New Year's Eve alone on one occasion'.
In addition, the monitoring device prevented him staying with his girlfriend or getting a job. The legal document reads almost like a satire.
We caught up with Makula at his first-floor flat in a terrace house on the outskirts of Leicester, where he was with a group of friends.
Not a word of remorse or regret concerning Mr Donovan passed Lukas Makula's lips during our brief conversation on his doorstep, when he remained defiant about his own victimhood.
'I was under an 8pm-8am curfew and living in shared accommodation,' he said. 'No one could visit me and I couldn't go out at night. It wasn't fair. I wanted to work and applied for many jobs.'
He had to turn down one job delivering parcels, for example, as he would have had to work past 8pm. Other positions also involved flexible working hours.
Yet his ankle tag was removed more than 18 months ago and he is still unemployed. 'I'm on sick,' he explained. 'I have back problems. I'm on benefits.'
Funnily enough, he seemed to have no difficulty getting down stairs to answer the front door or take his dog for walks.
In 2017, aged 15, he and two other teenage thugs kicked a man to the ground in a vicious, premeditated street robbery in Leicester city centre (pictured as a boy)
Makula also said he had mental health problems — a legacy, apparently, of knowing he was 'being continually monitored' when he was wearing the electronic tag.
He was diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) by a psychiatrist his legal team hired to examine him in his battle for compensation.
PTSD is commonly associated with soldiers returning from a war zone and people who have been involved in life-changing traumas, such as a serious road accident or being the victim of an assault. But perpetrators who have carried out assaults? Not so much.
Yet Makula is seeking damages for false imprisonment — even though the UK was in lockdown or subject to Covid restrictions when he was under curfew — and breaching the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
Few people in a civilised society would disagree with the fundamental principles of the ECHR. But few, aside from what former Home Secretary Priti Patel once called 'Leftie lawyers', believe it should be applied in this way.
Behind Makula are several of 'the usual suspects'. He is being represented in his latest claim — it is not the first — by a barrister from Doughty Street Chambers, where Labour Leader Sir Keir Starmer was once in practice.
Several barristers from the firm have acted for the charity Asylum Aid in court challenges to stop the Government deporting migrants to Rwanda.
The instructing firm of solicitors is Deighton Pierce Glynn, who specialise in asylum litigation and have made millions over the years from cases funded by the taxpayer through Legal
