Pawel Relowicz guilty of raping, murdering and dumping student Libby Squire in freezing river
A butcher has been found guilty of raping and murdering a 21-year-old student, with CCTV footage revealing her violent death took just minutes.
WARNING: Graphic.
A married butcher in the UK has today been found guilty of raping, murdering and dumping a student in a freezing river.
Pawel Relowicz, 26, was prowling the streets of Hull, Yorkshire, looking for a victim when he came across “extremely vulnerable” Libby Squires, 21.
After forcing Libby into his car, the dad-of-two drove her to a remote field where he raped her before dumping her dead or dying in a river.
She was discovered six weeks later on March 20, 2019, in an estuary by a fishing boat – a gold necklace bearing the letter ‘L’ still hanging around her neck.
Meanwhile, Relowicz began spinning a web of lies in an attempt to dupe police – including claiming he had consensual sex with Libby.
Jurors have today convicted him of rape and murder at Sheffield Crown Court after 27 hours and 55 minutes of deliberation, The Sun reports.
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The conviction comes just over two years after philosophy and religion student Libby vanished in Hull on February 1, 2019.
Relowicz, who showed no emotion when the verdict was read out, was remanded in custody ahead of sentencing on Friday.
Libby’s heartbroken parents held hands and cried from the public gallery ahead of their daughter’s killer being convicted.
Speaking outside court, mum Lisa was supported by husband Russ as she read a devastating statement.
The nurse said: “As a family, today’s verdict changes nothing for us.
“There is no closure. We don’t get to have Libby back.
“Our lives don’t revert back to normal.
“However, we are pleased that all the hard work and dedication 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.”
During the trial, the court was told Relowicz had previously pleaded guilty to nine sexually motivated offences including voyeurism, outraging public decency and burglary.
He had exposed himself to women and performed sex acts on himself in the street in the year leading up to Libby’s death.
Relowicz also watched them through their windows as they changed or had sex and stole underwear and sex toys from women’s homes as “trophies”.
His last offence occurred just days before Libby went missing in 2019.
The married dad-of-two admitted he had a “fetish” and was looking for “easy sex” on the night Libby vanished.
In a “terrible twist of fate”, it was then he saw Libby – “intercepting” her as she walked the cold streets of Hull on a winter night just moments from her home.
The student had been drinking with friends and appeared “in good spirits” before the group headed to the nightclub in the city centre at around 11pm.
CCTV showed Libby stumbling with her pals as they walked through the snow to the club.
Once there, security staff on the door refused to let her in because she appeared to be drunk so she told her friends she would walk home instead.
But her pals put her in a taxi, which dropped Libby off close to her home, but tragically she “walked away from the safety of her front door”.
Toxicology tests later revealed she was two-and-a-half times the drink-drive limit when she died.
She was later seen by passers-by “obviously drunk” and “sobbing” – including two men who spotted the student lying in the snow at the side of the road.
The bystanders tried to help her but were unable to understand what she was saying and she became verbally aggressive so they drove away.
A group of students who heard Libby crying outside their house let her in but she left, saying she wanted to go home.
She was likely hypothermic, “extremely vulnerable” and wasn’t dressed for the weather as she stumbled through the snow-covered streets.
At this point, Relowicz was lurking in the shadows watching the student’s movements.
He bundled Libby into his silver Vauxhall Astra and drove her to the secluded field where frantic screams were later heard.
Relowicz then left the field around seven-and-a-half minutes later without Libby.
Prosecutor Richard Wright QC said this was “more than enough time” for him to have “taken or pursued Libby out into the field, sexually attacked and killed her, put her body into the river, and then run back to his car.”
He said Relowicz’s “sole purpose” was to “silence her screams” after he raped Libby.
The prosecutor added: “Her screams, and the scratches that she clearly managed to land on the face of the defendant as she fought him off, are just part of the evidence that establishes that she was raped by a man whose entire motivation for coming into contact with her that night was to take her away from safety to a remote area well known to him and there to subject her to his uncontrollable sexual urges.
“His very purpose in prowling the streets was in order to commit opportunistic sexual offences and the rape of Libby was just such an offence.”
Relowicz later returned to the field in the early hours of the morning.
CCTV footage captured him standing with his knees bent performing a sex act on himself in the street.
He had also visited a porn site twice in the hours after Libby died and had been “in a state of heightened sexual arousal that night”.
Two days later, on February 3, a used condom containing DNA matching Relowicz was discovered in the area.
A huge search was mounted after Libby disappeared with police searching ponds, bins and backyards in a desperate bid to find the student.
Her mum Lisa Squire told the court how she knew something was “seriously wrong” when her daughter first vanished.
The nurse, from High Wycombe, Bucks, said: “I knew something wasn’t right and told her friend to call the taxi company, they had been to her favourite taxi companies and they had contacted the police.
“We made the decision not to panic and go straight to Hull as she could have gone to another friend’s house.
“I knew she had a lecture that day and would never miss a lecture so if she didn’t go to that something would be seriously wrong.
“We travelled to Hull and knew something serious had happened. It was not in her character and she was not answering her texts or calls.
“She was planning her future and was in the best place in her life she had ever been.”
As the frantic search gathered speed, Relowicz was arrested on suspicion of abduction in a huge breakthrough for the case.
But instead of helping police, he created an intricate story to throw officers off.
Painting himself as a caring hero, he claimed he “just wanted to help” when he saw crying Libby on the pavement.
He branded her a “very beautiful woman” but denied having any sexual feelings towards her.
Relowicz said: “I asked her if everything was OK with her, she said yes and she asked me to hug her.
“We were hugging each other and we started kissing.”
He told jurors the pair had sex but Libby “scratched” his face when he didn’t want to kiss her after so he drove away as she screamed at him not to leave her.
Relowicz said he then returned home where he had a bath and washed his clothes to stop his wife discovering he had sex with someone else.
After watching “nonviolent” porn, he told the court he returned to the field as he was “worried” about Libby but couldn’t see her.
The dad even said violent sexual intercourse, rape, rough sexual intercourse and the idea of causing pain in sex did not excite him sexually in a bizarre defence.
After he was arrested, police found a pink holdall containing “trophies … taken in a series of sexually motivated burglaries”.
This included sex toys, photographs of young women and several pairs of women’s underwear and G-strings.
When quizzed by police, Relowicz said he “forgot” about them and they did not belong to him or his wife.
He also had two “Halloween” masks in the boot of his car – one described as a “Scream” mask and the other which had red hair.
But it wasn’t until a month later that Libby’s body washed up in an estuary.
A post-mortem could not establish a cause of death but DNA matching Relowicz was found on her.
Her bruised body also had “neck marks” and small haemorrhages around her mouth, which could be evidence of asphyxia.
Relowicz was finally charged with Libby’s rape and murder in October 2019 – two months after being jailed for eight years for his other sex offences.
It can now be reported for the first time that his sentence was reduced to five years and eight months at the Court of Appeal in March last year.
Libby’s mum, who affectionately referred to her daughter as “Pie”, said she had lost “one of the four most precious things in my life” after the student’s body was discovered.
She added: “I cannot thank you enough my darling Pie for making me a mummy. For choosing me to be your mummy. It’s an honour, a privilege and a joy.
“I kept you safe for as long as I could and I am so sorry I could not keep you safe on that night. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”
This article originally appeared on The Sun and was reproduced with permission
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