A butcher with an ‘uncontrollable sexual deviancy’ who prowled the streets looking for victims was today found guilty of murdering and raping student Libby Squire.
Pawel Relowwicz, 26, tried to spin a web of lies about his involvement in killing the 21-year-old but a Sheffield Crown Court jury unravelled his callous deception.
Married father-of-two Relowicz picked her up just off Hull’s Beverley Road after spotting she was drunk and vulnerable at around midnight on January 31, 2019.
The Hull University philosophy student had been out with friends but had been refused entry to a club.
After finding her Relowwicz drove her to the nearby Oak Road playing fields, where he raped her before callously dumping her ‘dead or dying’ in the River Hull.
Her body was found by a fishing boat in the Humber Estuary almost seven weeks after she was reported missing on February 1, 2019.
Relowicz showed no emotion as the jury foreman read out the verdicts. He will be sentenced at the same court tomorrow.
Miss Squire’s parents, Lisa and Russ, held hands and cried as they sat in the public gallery overlooking the courtroom waiting for the announcement.
Libby Squire (pictured), 21, disappeared during a night out in February 2019. Her body was found in the Humber estuary weeks later
Pawel Relowicz, 25, has been found guilty of murdering 21-year-old student Libby Squire
In a statement outside court, Gerry Wareham, of the CPS, 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.
‘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.’
The court heard how Miss Squire’s friends had paid a taxi driver to take her home that night but, instead of going into her shared student house, she wandered in a drunken state.
She had fallen over in the snow and refused offers of help from passers-by until she encountered Relowicz.
He left the village of Warszewice, northern Poland, (population 616) with his wife (pictured together), now 26, and found work at pork producer Karro Foods’ plant in Malton, North Yorkshire
Prosecutor Mr Wright asked the jury to consider whether a young woman who had been crying, shivering uncontrollably and begging to go home to her mother would say: ‘I’ll lie here on this scrap of grass and I’ll have unprotected sex with you here and now’
CCTV footage shows Libby Squire on her way to the Welly Nightclub, which she was later turned away from
He lied to the jury he did not kill Miss Squire and said he had consensual sex with her on Oak Road but they saw through his ridiculous tall tales.
Witness Sam Alford, whose home overlooks Oak Road playing fields, recalled being woken shortly after midnight.
A couple of minutes after waking, he heard screams, the jury was told.
He said he often heard noise from the park as it was a student area with young people gathering there, so he ignored the first screams.
But the noise was intermittent and he heard more screaming coming from the playing fields.
Mr Alford said: ‘I could tell they were human, I could tell it was a female scream.
‘The screams were enough to make me think ‘what could that be?’
‘It was not constant, it was intermittent, that’s what stood out to me.’
Richard Wright QC, prosecuting, asked what the screams conveyed to him.
Mr Alford replied: ‘Like, desperation.’
Relowicz had admitted a series of what his barrister called ‘utterly disgusting’ sexual offences in the months before that night.
In one disturbing confession in court he said he watched porn and masturbated in the street in the hours after he attacked the student.
Relowicz – who has convictions for outraging public decency, voyeurism and sexually motivated burglaries – said he parked on Haworth Street with the intention of looking through windows and masturbating
He denied the rape and murder of Libby Squire but has been found guilty by a jury today
Giving evidence through an interpreter, Polish-born Relowicz told the court he was driving around Hull on the evening of Ms Squire’s disappearance because he was ‘looking for a woman to have easy sex’.
The killer – who has convictions for outraging public decency, voyeurism and sexually motivated burglaries – said he parked on Haworth Street with the intention of looking through windows and masturbating.
He lied to the court he left Ms Squire on Oak Road to walk home and she was alive.
A pathologist told the case he could not determine the cause of Ms Squire’s death due to the amount of time she had been in the water.
Dr Matthew Lyall said it meant any observations had to be made with a mind to the context that changes could have happened while she was in the river.
She had two lacerations inside her top lip which could not be ruled out as having happened when she was in the water.
He said there was no evidence of small hemorrhages around her mouth, which could be evidence of asphyxia – but added that their absence was ‘not conclusive’.
Dr Lyall said: ‘It’s not conclusive but is something we look out for. It is like a little bruise but you tend to see lots of them at once around the lips or the eyes.
‘They are a useful marker of it.’
Dr Lyall also said hr found suspected bruises found around Libby’s body, including on her chest, abdomen and thighs.
CCTV timeline of the night Libby Squire disappeared
Around 11.20pm on January 31 – Ms Squire and her friends are seen arriving at The Welly nightclub on Beverley Road.
11.21pm – footage from inside the entrance to The Welly shows Ms Squire standing to one side speaking to her friends after being refused entry.
11.26pm – Ms Squire’s friends are seen walking into The Welly and a taxi, containing Ms Squire, is seen setting off behind them.
11.26pm to 11.52pm – Relowicz drives his silver Vauxhall Astra from Cranbrook Avenue to Haworth Street – with a 20-minute stop in Alexandra Road.
Richard Wright QC, prosecuting, said: ‘The journey from Cranbrook Avenue to Haworth Street is not an unbroken journey in time. There’s a period of time when the vehicle stops again in Alexandra Road.’
11.29pm – CCTV footage shows Ms Squire’s taxi turning from Beverley Road on to Wellesley Avenue, where she lived with three other students, the court heard.
The prosecution say Relowicz then ‘stalked’ Ms Squire from the opposite side of the street before ‘darting’ over to intercept her
11.34pm – Mr Grandidge showed footage of Ms Squire at the door of a house on Wellesley Avenue, near its junction with Beverley Road.
The jury has heard that Ms Squire went into this house after one of its residents heard her crying outside.
11.36pm – Ms Squire is seen leaving the house and walking on to Beverley Road. She crosses the road and continues towards the junction with Haworth Street.
11.39pm – Ms Squire is seen falling to the ground.
Dashcam footage captured by a passing motorist shows Ms Squire on the pavement, ‘very close’ to the kerb.
11.40pm – footage shows a silver Citroen Picasso, containing Roland Jacobs and Alan Jones, stopping and Mr Jacobs getting out and walking to Ms Squire. He is seen helping her up off the ground before sitting her on a wall.
11.49pm – Mr Jacobs and Mr Jones drive away in the Citroen. The jury has heard that Mr Jacobs could not understand Ms Squire, who started to swear at him, and they left after trying to help for just short of 10 minutes.
11.52pm – another passer-by, Lorna Allen, is seen approaching Ms Squire.
11.57pm – Relowicz is seen getting out of his car on Haworth Street and walking on to Beverley Road past Ms Squire, crossing the road, and going out of sight into Beresford Avenue.
11.59pm – Ms Squire is seen walking down Beverley Road. Mr Wright described her as ‘moving from side to side on the pavement’ and Mr Grandidge told the jury she ‘stumbled’ on to the road at one point.
Thirty seconds later, Relowicz leaves Beresford Avenue and walks in the same direction on the opposite side of the road. After around half a minute, he crosses the road and ‘intercepts’ Ms Squire. They both disappear into the grounds of a former nunnery.
12.01am February 1 – Mr Wright told the jury that Ms Squire and Relowicz are seen emerging from the grounds after 58 seconds and walking back up Beverley Road.
12.02am – one minute and nine seconds later, they reach the entrance to Haworth Street.
12.03am – Relowicz returns to his car and is seen sitting in the driver’s seat with his feet outside the vehicle.
12.06am – a Renault Scenic, which has been parked in Haworth Street, leaves and Relowicz is seen standing up and walking towards Beverley Road.
The jury was shown enhanced footage from a camera on Haworth Street showing two figures walking across the end of the street before appearing to stand together and then moving towards Relowicz’s car.
Footage from another camera showed Ms Squire’s leg stepping into the passenger side of the car before she enters and sits down. Relowicz is then seen coming to the driver’s side and getting into the car.
12.08am – the vehicle leaves Haworth Street and is seen on CCTV footage travelling to Oak Road playing fields.
Polish butcher who raped and murdered Libby Squire, 21, fed his ‘uncontrollable sexual deviancy’ by stealing knickers and sex toys from young women’s bedrooms before leaving condoms as calling cards
By Kevin Donald
The bars in Hull’s small student district were bustling on the snowy Thursday night in January 2019 when Libby Squire vanished without trace.
The terraced streets around Newland Avenue are marketed by letting agents as the ‘epicentre of student life in Hull’ – and that’s exactly what drew ‘sexually deviant’ predator Pawel Relowicz to locate there.
He had left the village of Warszewice, northern Poland, (population 616) with his wife, now 26, five years earlier and both found work at pork producer Karro Foods’ plant in Malton, North Yorks.
Relowicz was given a role as a butcher at its slaughter and processing site, which had just seen a £500,000 investment.
To those in the city’s Polish community he was a ‘normal friendly, hard-working family man.’
Pawel Relowicz (left), 26, was found guilty of the rape and murder of Libby Squire (right), 21
But he masked an ‘uncontrollable sexual deviancy’ which he fed by stalking young women in their homes at night.
Relowicz peered through the windows of student houses at young undergraduates lying naked of involved in sexual acts, broke into their houses to steal knickers and sex toys and left behind condoms as ‘calling cards.’
He ‘patrolled’ the interlocked network of streets around the family home in his silver Vauxhall Astra and kept with him the pink holdall which held the ‘trophies’ he’d stolen during his sexually motivated raids.
Somehow, despite increasingly brazen sexual behaviour which included masturbating in the street, Relowicz evaded suspicion.
His hairdresser Iwona Reczulska knew both Relowicz and his wife as both used the salon where she works, Solo, near their home.
She told Mailonline: ‘I remember when [his wife] became pregnant with their first child how happy and excited he was about becoming a father.
‘[His wife] also comes to the salon to have her hair cut and they seemed like a very normal hard working family.
‘He worked five days a week at the bacon factory, which is about an hour away. He was not one to go out drinking, he always told me that he likes to spend weekends at home with the family.
A court artist’s sketch of Pawel Relowicz (in blue) sitting in Sheffield Crown Court
‘To me he was a normal, friendly, quite quiet guy.’
One of seven brothers and sisters, Relowicz had few friends and was a religious boy who liked to bake cakes and was afraid of blood, according to his mother Marzena, 53.
She said: ‘Pawel hates violence and blood – and would cry tears and tears whenever he cut himself growing up.
‘I was surprised when he got the butcher job in England but he was reluctant to take it – he needed money to support his family.’
He attended a local gym in Hull and had a passing interest in football but had few close friends, spending his time either at home with his young children or stalking the streets.
During his trial at Sheffield Crown Court, Richard Wright, QC, said that in the time leading up to Libby’s murder, Relowicz’s sexual urges were ‘completely out of control’ at that time and Relowicz agreed that they were.
The trial was told he left used condoms behind because he wanted to strike fear into the women whose homes he had invaded and ‘got a kick’ out of them knowing he had been masturbating while there.
Throughout 2017, 2018 and into 2019, Relowicz continued his behaviour and was only caught when it was too late for LIbby.
He was jailed in August 2019 for eight and a half years after admitting nine offences including theft of sexual items and voyeurism at Sheffield Crown Court.
Judge Jeremy Richardson, QC, told him:’It is clear to me that you harbour sexually deviant traits within your character. This led you to commit these crimes which, taken as a whole, may only be characterised as a campaign of sexually deviant criminality.
‘Your conduct has caused immense distress to several young women in Hull. I regard you as potentially a very dangerous individual.
Libby Squire, 21, died in Hull two years ago
‘You lived with your wife at Raglan Street in Hull. Your home was near to the University of Hull and nearby student accommodation. Over a period of about 19 months from June 2017 you exhibited very disturbing behaviour towards young women living close to where you lived.’
His years of predatory behaviour culminated in the death of Libby Squire, who was unfortunate enough to encounter him whilst drunk and incapable, having been turned away from a student night at The Welly venue nearby.
Several people had tried to help her but gave up when Libby asked to leave their company.
Relowicz admitted to the jury that he was out that night looking for ‘easy sex.’ He approached Libby ‘out of curiosity’ as she was ‘crying and screaming.’
Asked if he found Libby attractive, Relowicz said: ‘she was a very beautiful woman’.
Libby, 21, was crying, had lost her keys and her knee was bleeding from repeatedly falling over on the snowy ground.
Seizing his chance Relowicz bundled her into his car, under the pretence of helping her, and drove her to the nearby Oak Road playing fields where he raped her on the frozen ground next to his car.
It was in that sexual attack – which Relowicz insisted was consensual – that he ended LIbby’s life and then dragged her to the bank of the River Hull, which borders the field.
Ms Squire’s father, Russ, left the public gallery while the CCTV clip was played, while her mother, Lisa, held a tissue to her face as she watched
He threw Libby into the ‘cold waters’ of the Hull, where she reached the Humber and was then carried out to sea. Her body was spotted by a crewman of a passing ship in March 2019 off Cleethorpes.
Relowicz insisted to the jury that Libby was happy to go with him and that she’d consented to sex despite describing the state she was in.
He said: ‘She said, ‘hey man’ and I said, ‘What’s up?’ ‘She said she needed some help, she wanted to go home to her mum.’
Mr Wright asked him: ‘Drunk, cold, shivering, crying terribly, rolling her head, wanting her mum. That’s how she was when you set off, wasn’t it?’
Relowicz replied: ‘Yes, that’s correct.’
Police cut back undergrowth while investigating the disappearance of Miss Squire in 2019
Gifted student Libby Squires had struggled with mental health but was ‘in the best place she had ever been’ before she was brutally murdered
By Kevin Donald
Libby Squire was ‘in the best place in her life she had ever been’ when she was raped and murdered by Pawel Relowicz.
The gifted student had been through difficulties with her mental health during her A levels but after a year out spent travelling she threw herself into her studies at Hull University, where she’d received an unconditional offer.
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She had good friends and enjoyed to go out and party, but was still in touch with her mum, Lisa, by phone or text every day.
The silence that followed her planned night out on January 31, 2019, triggered a mother’s instinct that something terrible had befallen the eldest child she affectionately knew as ‘Pie.’
Police divers search for missing Miss Squire near Beverley Road in Hull in February 2019
In a statement to the court Mrs Squire, from High Wycombe, Bucks, said: ‘I love all of my children dearly but there is no denying we shared a special bond. We were that in sync with each other I would describe us as being as one.
‘She was very close with all of her siblings but had a very special bond with her brother Joe.
‘At school she made a good set of friends who she stayed in contact with until her death. She always worked hard and was always very organised with homework.
‘In 2014, Libby did her GCSE’s and got five A* grades, 2 A’s and a C. She decided to go to college to complete her A-levels where she attended between 2014 and 2016.
‘Due to her mental health she did not do well in her A-level exams and got two D grades and one U. She decided she wanted to go to university and decided she wanted to go to Hull as she liked the city and what the University had to offer.’
After her year out LIbby felt she was ready to resume her studies, hoping one day to become a journalist.
Lisa added: ‘I was reluctant about her going away to university but she was adamant. She took a gap year before and travelled, going to Paris.
‘She said she always wanted to go back and return. During this year she worked hard on her mental health and was in a really good place when she went to University.’
Then 19, Libby worked hard and played hard in her first year at Hull.
‘She enjoyed nights out and drinking but was very much against drugs,’ Lisa continued.
‘I have regularly collected her from parties and had to carry her into the house. She had previously damaged and lost mobile telephones so she got into the habit of not taking it out with her if she knew she was going out drinking as she didn’t want to lose or damage it.
‘For Libby to have a mobile it would be just to contact me or her friends. She was not obsessed with it like her friends and was not into social media. She only used these sites to contact friends and was a very private person.
‘Libby liked things in order and took pride in everything, including her handwriting. She never took having anything for granted.
‘She was always funny and had a wicked sense of humour. She was always very creative and chatty and had an ability to put people at ease, she made people feel included.’
Libby had struggled with her mental health through her teenage years but had begun to overcome her troubles before she moved to Hull.
Lisa said: ‘As a child aged around 11 she suffered with glandular fever. It had an effect on her and she wasn’t herself after. During her teenage years she suffered with mental health issues.
‘She was always considerate of other people’s feelings. When her friend was 13 her friend suffered with an eating disorder and Libby wanted to support her friend and she began to suffer with one.
‘When she suffered with her mental health she became depressed and a symptom was self-harm, which she began when she was 14. It was during this time our bond became stronger. She was always honest with me regarding her self-harm. I helped her dress her wounds and made sure she had antiseptic wipes and plasters.
‘During this period I always worried about her and feared I would find her dead in her bedroom.
‘I never thought I would have her for the rest of our lives. With support she was able to move forward.’
When LIbby’s body was found in the North Sea, Lisa knew it couldn’t have been an accident because her daughter had a life-long fear of water.
She said: ‘She always had a fear of water from a young age and she wasn’t a good swimmer.
‘When on family holidays as a child she would not go in a swimming pool or near the sea. It was only on one of our last family holidays that she stood in the swimming pool at the edge.
‘I know she would never voluntarily put herself in water – especially moving water.
‘She was always scared of the dark and would never take a shortcut home or walk down a street with little light.’
When she failed to hear from Libby on January 31, Lisa began to fear that ‘something would be seriously wrong’.
‘I took Libby back to Hull on Sunday, January 27, 2019. She was looking forward to being back and seeing her friends,’ her statement continued.
‘I spoke to her every day by call or text but didn’t have contact with her on January 31 as I had been on a night shift.
‘She had sent her a photo of herself that afternoon. I knew she was going out that evening to the Welly. I was working another night shift.
‘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.’
