Libby Squire: Man who raped and murdered student jailed for 27 years
The man who raped and murdered Hull University student Libby Squire has been jailed for a minimum of 27 years.
Pawel Relowicz, a serial sex offender, was sentenced at Sheffield Crown Court on Friday.
The 26-year-old married father-of-two was convicted by a jury on Thursday following 28 hours worth of deliberations.
During sentencing, Squire’s parents Lisa and Russ gave emotional statements about the loss of their daughter.
“Not only have I lost my first-born child with whom I had an amazing bond, but I’ve also lost the possibility of being a grandmother to her children,” Lisa Squire told the court.
“In any times of trouble she wanted me, her mum. She knew I would do anything in my power to help her. Knowing I was not there when she needed me will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
She added: “Knowing that in Libby’s last hour of life she wanted me and needed me but I wasn’t there for her will haunt me for the rest of my life.
“Because of what happened that night to Libby, I now live in two worlds – one where I’m a mother, wife and employee, but then there is a dark and lonely world.In this world I long to die so I can be with my girl one more time.”
Relowicz followed Squire as she attempted to find her way home in a drunk and confused state in the early hours of 1 February, 2019.
He lured Squire into his car before driving her to a playing field where he then raped and murdered her.
Relowicz then dumped the 21-year-old’s body in the River Hull and it was later found in the North Sea.
A mass of circumstantial evidence linked Relowicz to the philosophy’s students disappearance, although pathologists could not determine exactly how she died.
Squire’s body had been in the water for nearly seven weeks before it was discovered in the Humber Estuary.
Her disappearance sparked a huge search involving police and members of the public.
Relowicz, a bacon factory worker from Poland, was arrested after detectives trawled through hours of CCTV and saw that his car had been cruising in the area.
The court heard that Squire had been out with friends on the evening of 31 January, 2019, but was refused entry to a club because she was drunk.
© Provided by PA Media Libby Squire and her killer, Pawel Relowicz (PA)
Her friends paid a taxi driver to take her home but, instead of going into her shared student house, she wandered around, fell over in the snow, and refused offers of help from passers-by, until she encountered Relowicz.
He was to tell police five versions of what happened and only admitted to having consensual sex with Squire after his DNA was discovered in her body.
He told the jury he did not kill her and said he had consensual sex with her in Oak Road.
He admitted a series of what his barrister called “utterly disgusting” sexual offences in the months before that night, committing acts of voyeurism and stealing intimate items from student homes as trophies.
Giving evidence through an interpreter, Relowicz, of Raglan Street, Hull, told the court he was driving around the city on the evening of Squire’s disappearance because he was “looking for a woman to have easy sex” with.
He was found guilty of rape unanimously by a jury of five men and seven women and guilty of murder by a majority of 11 to one.
