Libby Squire’s mum pays tribute to ‘beautiful, wonderful girl’ after sex offender is found guilty of murder
LIBBY Squire’s mum hailed her “beautiful, wonderful” daughter yesterday — as a serial sex offender was found guilty of her murder.
Pawel Relowicz, 26, lured the 21-year-old student into his car before raping her and killing her in a park.
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The Polish dad of two showed no emotion when convicted.
Libby’s mum Lisa — supported by husband Russell — said outside court: “There is no closure. We don’t get to have Libby back.
“She will always be with us and we are all so proud of our beautiful, caring, wonderful girl.
“And, although she has been physically taken from us, the memories we have and the love we share will never be taken.”
Nurse Lisa, 50, referred to her daughter as Pie and said she had lost “one of the four most precious things in my life”.
She will always be with us and we are all so proud of our beautiful, caring, wonderful girl.
Lisa Squire
She added: “I would describe us as being almost as one.”
Libby had fought mental health issues but was “in the best place in her life” when she arrived at Hull University to study philosophy.
In January 2019, she returned to her uni digs after Christmas at home in High Wycombe, Bucks.
And on January 31 she met pals for drinks before heading to a club. Libby was refused entry for being too drunk and put in a taxi.
Instead of walking through her door to safety she staggered through the snow-covered streets.
11-MINUTE ORDEAL
At the same time, Relowicz was driving around for what he described to the jury as “easy sex”.
He saw shivering Libby sobbing by the road. She was likely hypothermic, had lost her keys and fallen repeatedly.
Good Samaritans tried to help her but she became agitated so they left. From there she had seemingly vanished.
She begged Relowicz to take her to her mum. Instead, he hauled her to the park in an 11-minute ordeal.
Her parents' statement
WE would like to thank everybody for their love and support over the last two years. We have both really appreciated it.
Our special thanks go out to the police teams and the other agencies involved with Libby’s case from the outset through to today.
As a family, today’s verdict changes nothing. There is no closure. We don’t get to have Libby back. Our lives don’t revert back.
However, we are pleased all the hard work of the police and legal teams has been recognised.
Libby will always be with us and we are all so proud of our beautiful, caring, wonderful girl.
And, although she has been physically taken from us, the memories we have and the love we share will never be taken.
Relowicz returned home where he logged on to a porn site before washing his grass-stained jeans.
But police were on to him within days after trawling CCTV. Crucially, it showed Libby getting into his silver Vauxhall Astra at 00.08am.
Six minutes later her screams woke a resident. Minutes later at 00.19 CCTV showed him emerging from the shadows.
Relowicz, a butcher at a meat factory, dumped her body in a river. It was found seven weeks later in the Humber estuary.
That August he was arrested. In his car police found trophies from sexually motivated raids on student homes plus two Halloween masks.
They took his DNA and linked him to an 18-month crime spree in which he had spied on students having sex, raided their homes and pleasured himself in front of them.
His last burglary took place three days before Libby’s murder, on the same street where she lived.
For those offences Relowicz admitted burglary, voyeurism and outraging public decency and was sentenced to 8½ years’ jail.
He will be sentenced for Libby’s murder today and faces life behind bars.
The breakthrough in the Libby case came when DNA on her body provided a billion-to-one match to him. Relowicz lied about helping to get her home, before smirking and laughing when asked if he had killed her.
Relowicz robbed a young and vibrant woman of her life and her future.
Gary Wareham
Prosecutor Richard Wright QC said: “At the time he encountered Libby he was a man who was driven to commit sexually motivated offences against young women and was undeterred by them seeing or challenging him.
“His offending was frequent and targeted in this student area of the city. He was looking for an opportunity to offend.”
Yesterday, Det Supt Martin Smalley defended the Humberside force over its handling of Relowicz’s 18-month spree.
He said an internal review was conducted after Relowicz was first arrested and his DNA tied to previous sexually related offences to identify if Libby’s murder could have been prevented.
Mr Smalley said: “Having fully reviewed each investigation we are satisfied that we did carry out proportionate investigations into these reports at the time and that they were treated with the appropriate level of seriousness.
“Whilst there were some occasions where forensics were recovered in connection to these previously reported offences, they could not have been connected in a way that would have led us to Pawel Relowicz any earlier.
‘WEB OF LIES’
After Libby’s disappearance, officers acted quickly, with very limited lines of enquiry, to proactively identify, locate and apprehend Pawel Relowicz within days of Libby’s disappearance.
“With regards to whether we could have reasonably connected the incidents to one another, there were very few opportunities to do this.”
Gerry Wareham, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: “Relowicz robbed a young and vibrant woman of her life and her future.
“His actions have left her family and friends devastated.
“Relowicz invented a web of lies to explain his actions that night, insisting throughout that he had tried to help Libby find her way home.
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“Nothing could be further from the truth. Far from being a Good Samaritan, Relowicz preyed upon her.
“He took advantage of her vulnerable and distressed state and then he raped and murdered her.
“I cannot begin to imagine the suffering Libby’s family are enduring. I can only hope that today’s verdict can bring them some measure of comfort. Our thoughts remain with them.”
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