Timeline: How Libby Squire 'strayed into the path' of her killer
Report by Michael Billington
It took four weeks for a court to go back through the final night of Libby Squire’s life, but now a man has been convicted of the Hull student’s rape and murder.
It is now just over two years since Libby was turned away from a nightclub in the city. That moment, on January 31st 2019, began a sequence of events which were to lead her into the path of her killer.
26-year-old Pawel Relowicz, a "sexual predator", had cruised the student area of the city looking for a woman for sex.
Many of his movements and those of his victim that night were captured on CCTV. Along with witness accounts, the footage allowed police to plot their journeys and lead them to Relowicz.
23.20pm - Welly Club
After drinks at a friend’s house, CCTV shows Libby arriving at the Welly Club at 11.20pm.
But when she was turned away for being ‘too drunk’, friends say they put her into a taxi home to Wellesley Avenue.
It was just a mile and a half journey along Beverley Road back to her house, but she never made it inside.
Turning from home, over the course of the next half hour, Libby made her way from Wellesley Avenue and along Beverley Road.
Stumbling, crying and lying in the snow, she encountered several people who offered help, which she rejected.
She was last seen sitting on a bench on the corner of Beverley Road and Haworth Street. It was there that she came into the sights of sex offender, Pawel Relowicz.
00:08 - Relowicz drives off with Libby
Relowicz had been ‘’patrolling’’ the streets in his Vauxhall Astra searching for ‘’an opportunity to present itself’’ when he came across Libby.
The court heard how he had ‘’stalked’’ her before intercepting the 21-year-old.
At 8 minutes past midnight, Libby was in her killer’s car as he drove away with her in it.
Their 3 minute journey took them from Haworth Street, onto Cottingham Road, then Beverley Road and along Beresford Avenue - ending at Oak Road playing fields at 00:11.
It is where Relowicz claimed the pair had sex.
00:19 - Relowicz leaves the scene
CCTV footage captured Relowicz's indicators flashing as he unlocked his car and left.
A witness described hearing 'deep, loud, frantic screaming' - and seeing a man "walking with urgency" out of the park a few minutes later.
Two hours later at 2:25am he made a visit to the fields which lasted just over four minutes - the reason is still unclear why he returned.
The jury accepted the prosecution’s claim that he raped and murdered the 21-year-old student there, throwing her into the river Hull.
There followed the largest missing persons inquiry in Humberside Police history. But on March 20th 2019, her body was found in the Humber Estuary, off Spurn Point.
Pawel Relowicz was found guilty at Sheffield Crown Court of the rape and murder of Libby Squire on Thursday 11 February 2021.