GUILTY: Knifeman who went on run admits party killing

The property where the victim was knifed to death

Victim Marcin Pawlow, a Polish national who had been living in Doncaster, had travelled to Blackpool to see a friend and the pair ended up at a party at a flat on Central Drive in the resort on December 23.

But the night ended in tragedy after a drunken argument at around 1am.

During the row Mr Pawlow, 30, went back to the property and reportedly let off a fire extinguisher at the occupant who lived there.

Scene of a manslaughter on Central Drive, Blackpool

It led to a brawl.

One of the men, Wojcieh Sylwester Sobisz, 36, a muscular body builder who had moved to Lancashire from Poland a year earlier, knifed him in the shoulder leg and hip.

The blade caught his femoral artery and around three minutes later, after limping from the property, Mr Pawlow collapsed in the street,

He was pronounced dead at Blackpool Victoria Hospital.

Wojcieh Sylwester Sobisz, manslaughter convict on Central Drive Dec 23

Six men who were in the property for the party, aged 52, 32, 45, 31, 33 and 34, all from Blackpool, were arrested on suspicion of murder but were released when the circumstances came to light.

Sobisz, a father-of-two, had already fled to friends in Leicestershire and was wanted for three weeks before being tracked down in an intensive man hunt.

Police say he denied the incident in a police interview and tried to blame someone else at the party.

But on what should have been the day of his pre-trial review at Preston Crown Court, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

Det Chief Insp Dean Holden, who investigated the death, today said: “We hope the plea offers some closure to the victim’s family back in Poland. He had only been over in the UK for a year or so.

Sobisz is expected to be sentenced on July 19.