Libby Squire: Butcher guilty of raping and murdering student and throwing body in river

Pawel Relowicz has been found guilty of the rape and murder of student Libby Squire.

On Thursday a jury returned a verdict after four days’ deliberation following a two-week trial at Sheffield Crown Court.

The 26-year-old has always maintained his innocence, claiming he had consensual sex with Ms Squire on the evening she disappeared after a night out in Hull.

Her body was found in the Humber estuary around seven weeks after she disappeared in the early hours of February 1, 2019.

Relowicz, a butcher with prior convictions for sexually motivated offences against women, had admitted masturbating on the street in the night in question.

He agreed with prosecutor Richard Wright QC when he said that the “whole purpose” of his journey around Hull on the evening of January 31 was to “find an opportunity” to meet more women.

Speaking through an interpreter, Polish-born Relowicz said he had the thought of masturbating “stuck in his head”.

The court heard that the defendant spent three hours and 20 minutes driving and walking around the streets of Hull before he met Ms Squire, who was drunk, distressed and hypothermic after being refused entry to a nightclub.

Relowciz told the jury that he offered her a lift home but stopped the car at Oak Road playing fields when he thought she was going to be sick.

He said she asked for a hug and they began kissing before having sex on the ground near his car.

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