Libby Squire’s killer Pawel Relowicz agrees to meet her mother

The mother of murdered student Libby Squire has revealed that the “sexual predator” who raped and killed the 21-year-old has agreed to meet her. 

Lisa Squire told Sky News she is determined to find out what exactly happened to her daughter after she was abducted by Pawel Relowicz – and hopes to get answers by speaking to him.

The Polish butcher was jailed for 27 years for raping and murdering Libby, who disappeared during a night out in Hull in January 2019. Her body was found seven weeks later in the Humber Estuary.

Relowicz, now 28, denied killing Libby and pathologists were unable to determine a cause of death because of the amount of time her body had been in the water.

Mrs Squire said she was in the process of arranging a meeting with Relowicz through a restorative justice charity, adding that it was “quite a brave thing” for him to do.

“A lot of people don’t understand this – I don’t hate him,” she told Sky News.

“I’m not angry with him. I just want information from him.

“I don’t wish to forgive him. I don’t wish to understand why he did what he did.

“For me, it’s very much about finding out how she was in those last 20 minutes of her life.”

Libby’s killer sets conditions for meeting

Mrs Squire said a date has not yet been set for the meeting and Relowicz has outlined certain conditions that are still to be resolved.

She said: “We’ve got to the stage where he’s agreed to see me but has changed some of the parameters.

“For me, it’s really important to find out how she died. I need to know that.

“Will I believe him if he tells me? I don’t know.

“There are lots of questions I want to ask.”

Mrs Squire said Relowicz, who was found guilty of Libby’s rape and murder following a trial last year, still denies the crimes.

On the conditions he has set for their meeting, she added: “As far as I’m aware, he doesn’t want to talk about what happened that night, which is the only reason I want to see him.

“We have to come up with some sort of arrangement, between him and I, as to what we’re going to talk about.

“It’s actually quite a brave thing for him to do. Prisoners don’t get any reward for seeing the victim’s family.

“To agree to see me in the first place is a big thing. And I am grateful.

“I certainly don’t want him as my best friend, but I don’t hate him.

“He holds the key to questions I have.”

Fears Relowicz could kill again

Libby’s murder is explored in a new Sky Crime documentary – called Libby, Are You Home Yet? – which features previously unreleased footage of Relowicz laughing as he is told he is being arrested for Libby’s rape and murder.

The three-part programme considers whether Relowicz, a father of two who lived with his wife and children in Hull, could have been stopped earlier by police after he committed a string of offences – including voyeurism, outraging public decency and burglary – in the months before Libby was killed.

Relowicz had been carrying out a campaign of chilling, sexually motivated crimes in the student area of Hull – peering through windows to watch young women, breaking into their homes to steal intimate items, and masturbating in the street.

In the hours after raping and killing Libby, he returned home and watched pornography before going out again in an apparent search for another victim.

Mrs Squire – who describes Relowicz in the documentary as a “sexual predator” whose crimes were “stomach churning” – told Sky News she fears he will kill again if he is released at the end of his 27-year sentence.

“There is not a question of doubt in my mind that if he only gets to serve 27 years, he will come out and do it again, because he will only be in his early 50s,” she said.

“He shows no remorse now and I don’t believe in 20 years’ time he’ll show any remorse.

“He will come out and do it again. I’m absolutely convinced of it.

“For such a young man to do such horrendous things, even putting Libby’s rape and murder to one side, the things he was doing were just so abnormal for all men.

“He is an incredibly dangerous individual.

“Whilst I’ve got breath in my body, I will ensure that man never comes out of prison – ever.”

Libby’s killer ‘should have same sentence as Wayne Couzens’

Mrs Squire believes her daughter’s killer should have received a whole life prison sentence – like the one given to police officer Wayne Couzens, who abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard.

She has argued that whole life tariffs should be the automatic sentence for anyone convicted of murder, but says when she put this to Boris Johnson during a meeting earlier this year, the then prime minister told her: “There aren’t the prison spaces.”

In response to that, Mrs Squire said: “Well then build more prisons, it’s a simple as that.

“Anyone who goes out and takes a life should be given a whole life tariff, end of.

“In 27 years, Libby doesn’t come back. I don’t get my daughter back. My children don’t get to have their sister back.

“We have a whole life sentence to live.

“This was a choice. [Relowicz] chose to do this. I didn’t have any choice in this and yet it seems to me that we are punished more than they are.

“The Wayne Couzens and Relowicz sentences should be the same.”

‘If one of you had gone home with her, she would still be alive today’

In the documentary, friends of Libby, who were with her on the night she disappeared, reveal they were blamed by some people for not travelling home with her after she was refused entry to the club.

One friend, Amelia, says she was in a taxi when the driver turned around and said it was her fault that Libby had gone missing.

Mrs Squire told Sky News that only Relowicz was to blame for her daughter’s death but admitted she went through a phase where she thought: “Without question, if one of you had gone home with her, she would still be alive today.”

“That is the truth. There is no getting away from that fact,” Mrs Squire said.

“But they didn’t do any of this deliberately. They didn’t know what was going to happen.

“Those poor people who were with her that night have got to live with this for the rest of their lives.

“They have a whole different life because of what that man did to our daughter.

“I never blamed them… there’s only one person to blame for Libby’s death.”

Mrs Squire says she now tells Libby’s three siblings when they go out: “Be aware of your surroundings, be aware of who you are, and never leave your mates – if you go out as a two, you come home as a two.”

Libby was strangled or asphyxiated, mother believes

On the night Libby was killed, Mrs Squire believes her daughter had gone for a walk to calm down because she was angry about being refused entry to the club.

She also believes Relowicz either persuaded her daughter to get into his car “under false pretences” or that he “put her” in the vehicle.

“I believe there’s only two possibilities of how she died – asphyxiation or strangulation,” she said.

“I would like to know because it’s a massive thing. It’s very hard to not know how your child has died.

“I would like for him to tell me but I don’t think he ever will.”

‘I miss her beyond belief’

Mrs Squire said her husband Russ declined to feature in the documentary as Libby’s death remains “incredibly raw for him” and he does not want to meet Relowicz.

“Not being able to see her and speak to her every day, it is torture,” Mrs Squire said of her daughter.

“It goes without saying I miss her beyond belief. I still get really tearful when I think about it.

“I’m incredibly proud of her. She’s making such a difference to people even now.

“I miss her. I miss her so much and it’s really hard. Some days I struggle to get out of bed to carry on a day without her.

“I know if I gave in and laid in bed, she would be saying: ‘For goodness’ sake, get up. You can’t be laying in bed all day’.

“Everything I do, I do to honour her and make my other children proud.”

Libby, Are You Home Yet? is available from 27 October on Sky Crime at 9pm and streaming service Now