Mum of murdered Libby Squire: 'Sarah Everard's death opened up wounds as people aren't learning lessons'
Video report by ITV News Presenter Julie Etchingham
The mother of murdered Libby Squire has revealed how the death of Sarah Everard brought back the horror of losing her own child. Libby Squire was 21, a philosophy student living life to the full at university in Hull. But one night in January 2019, she got into a taxi on her own and disappeared. She was then raped and murdered.
It was the beginning of an agony her mother still lives with. In her first broadcast interview, Lisa Squire said something must change to prevent more families suffering like she has.
Appearing on the ITV Tonight programme Women: How Safe Are We? in the wake of Sarah Everard's disappearance and death, which has opened up a wider debate about the safety of women on our streets, Ms Squire said: "The minute you hear they're missing, it's like when you lose them in a supermarket, when they're little, your stomach drops.
"But obviously then, you find them, and you get that that lovely feeling: 'Oh, thank goodness'. But your stomach drops, and it never comes back up again."
Libby’s body was found seven weeks after she went missing, in the river Humber. Her mother said she was "devastated, absolutely devastated.
"It's that fear that you have always as a woman. And I was thinking, there was no worse way to die for her, she must have been so scared. And with it being so public as well, that's really hard. You feel like you lose your child, all over again."
Ms Squire and her family then endured the trial of Pawel Relowicz - a Polish butcher who was convicted of her rape and murder. It thrust the family into the spotlight all over again.
And when 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard went missing in south London - and her body found a week later - it "opened up wounds" for Ms Squire. "It was horrible," she told ITV News.
"It just opened up a lot of wounds for me, And I just thought... people aren't learning anything, nothing's different.
"This could have been Libby's story, too. It was Libby's story two years ago. And it will be somebody else's story in a year. And we've got to change something. "You should be free to feel safe to walk down the road, or you should feel free to walk across a park at 9.30pm at night, and get to the other side safely.
"And there's 50% of our society, that don't feel free to do that. And that's not right."
ITV News Presenter Julie Etchingham asked: "You have been through the pain that Sarah’s family are now experiencing it can’t be wasted can it?" "Absolutely," Lisa replied. "Sarah's life, Libby's life, and all the other women who have been killed. They've died for no reason.
"We have to change something to make the world a safer place for other women."
Women: How Safe Are We? Tonight is on ITV at 7.30pm on Thursday 8 April.