The mum of Libby Squire said “the love we share will never be taken” after a butcher was found guilty of the rape and murder of her “amazing” daughter.
A jury had been deliberating for almost 28 hours before they found Pawel Relowicz guilty on both counts on Thursday..
Nurse, Lisa Squire, had been clutching hands with husband Russell and crying before the jury gave their verdicts.
Standing outside Sheffield Crown Court, Lisa, with Russ by her side, 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.
“…Libby will always be with us and we are all so proud of our beautiful,
caring, amazingly wonderful girl.
“And, although she has been physically taken from us, the memories we have and the love we share will never be taken.”
The couple from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, had sat through the harrowing evidence during a month-long trial.
They were forced to wait while the jury deliberated for 27 hours and 55 minutes.
They heard how Relowicz, 26, had been “prowling” the streets of Hull looking for “easy sex” when he came across their sobbing and shivering student daughter.
The Polish-born dad of two would tell his wife he was off for a run and instead visit his favourite “hot spots” in the student area.
In a “terrible twist of fate” on January 31st 2019, he crossed paths with Libby.
She had been turned away from a nightclub for being too drunk.
Her pals had put her in a taxi home and paid her fare back to their shared house. But she never made it inside.
After getting out of the taxi she staggered off into the snow covered streets.
Passers by tried to help her as she fell to the ground.
But eventually she was picked up by the “utterly gross and disgusting” sexual predator Relowicz .
He offered to take her home, doing up her seatbelt once he got her in his car.
But instead of taking her to safety he drove straight past her street and took her to remote playing fields, where he raped her on a grass verge.
It is then believed he dragged her to the river nearby and dumped her “dead or dying” into the freezing water below.
A local resident heard her intermittent screams of “desperation” go on for 15 minute.
Mr Richard Wright QC, prosecuting, accused Relowicz of trying to “silence her screams”, by dumping her in a frozen river.
Her body was only found seven weeks later in the Humber Estuary by a pleasure boat skipper.
Her necklace with the letter “L’ was still around her neck.
Police first picked up Relowicz on February 6th, days after Libby vanished.
They’d spotted his car cruising the area on CCTV.
It took him weeks to admit to having sex with Libby and only after forensic experts discovered his semen was still inside her body.
During police interviews Relowicz told five different versions of what happened, the curt heard.
Relowicz claimed sex with “very beautiful” Libby was consensual and he’d left her “alive and well”.
But the prosecution pointed out that Libby was in no condition to consent to sex and would have been unable to run away as she was hypothermic.
She was, they said, ‘very vulnerable to attack’.
After his arrest they discovered he was the same man who had been ‘stalking’ the students of Hull for 18 months.
When police searched his car they found several horror masks in his boot, one clown mask from the film It and a Scream mask.
There was also a pink holdall of ‘trophies’ including dildos and vibrators.
In his desk drawer they found a book of student accommodation and in his home drone footage of Oak Road playing fields.
He later admitted nine sexually motivated crimes and was jailed for eight years. This was reduced on appeal to five years eight months.
In court on trial for Libby’s murder, he admitted his sexual urges were “out of control” and he said he had “a problem” and got excited by watching couples have sex.
He would also masturbate in front of women in the street and break into homes and steal their underwear and sex toys.
But these “disgusting” crimes turned deadly when he spotted Libby crying in the street .
Libby was “screaming”, crying, begging to go home and asking for her mum.
“She never stood a chance,” Mr Wright QC, told the jury.
Her mum told the court her daughter had struggled with her mental health but added: “She was planning her future and was in the best place in her life she had ever been.”
Relowicz claimed he had not told the police about Libby because he didn’t want his wife to find out and was “emotionally broken” that he’d cheated on her.
But former neighbours deny he was the loving husband he portrayed in court.
After getting out of the taxi she staggered off into the snow covered streets.
Passers by tried to help her as she fell to the ground.
But eventually she was picked up by the “utterly gross and disgusting” sexual predator Relowicz .
He offered to take her home, doing up her seatbelt once he got her in his car.
It is believed his wife fled home to Poland after her husband’s arrest, quitting her job at Malton Bacon Factory.
Their house in Raglan Street has recently been sold.