Libby Squire murder: Everything the judge said as Pawel Relowicz is sentenced to life in prison

"Pawel Relowicz, the jury have found you guilty of the rape and murder of 21 year old Liberty Squire on February 1 2019. I must now sentence you for those offences.

"For the offence of murder, the sentence is fixed by law. The sentence for that offence is life imprisonment. But I must now set the minimum term that you will serve in custody for that offence. In doing so, that minimum term will reflect not only the murder but also the offence of rape.

"A minimum term means what it says. Even after you have served that term, you will not be released unless and until the Parole Board decides that it is safe to do so. You may never be released. If you are, you will remain on licence for the rest of your life and will be liable to recall if you commit any further offence or breach the conditions of your licence.

"I have been the trial judge in this case, and I set out now the facts of your offending of which I am sure having heard all of the evidence.

"In August 2019 you were sentenced in this court to a term of imprisonment of five years and eight months for four offences of voyeurism, three counts of burglary and two counts of outraging public decency over a period from June 2017 to January 2019. All of those offences had been motivated by what you, during the course of this trial, referred to as “your problem”.

"By using such a term, you were referring to your inability to control your own urge for sexual self-gratification which led you to seek out young women to watch through their bedroom windows whilst they got dressed, had sexual intercourse or were simply lying there.

"During the three weeks before you raped and killed Liberty Squire, you confronted two sets of young women at night. On one occasion you masturbated in front of them whilst looking directly at them; on the other occasion you masturbated only a few metres away from the women and then followed them.

"The sentencing judge in August 2019 referred to your offending as a perverted campaign of sexually deviant behaviour. He was correct to do so. He also considered you to be, potentially, a very dangerous individual. Again, he was correct to do so. In the weeks and months before you raped and murdered Liberty Squire your offending escalated. You grew increasingly emboldened, no doubt because you were confident that you would not, and could not, be caught."

Justice Lambert then outlined what happened on the night Relowicz raped and murdered Miss Squire.

She said: "Shortly before 9pm on January 31, 2019 you left your home in the student area of Hull to cruise the streets looking for young women to offend against: either to masturbate in front of, or to look at when they were in the privacy of their own bedrooms.

"You told the jury that, on that evening, you were also looking for the opportunity for easy sex. One of the places that you went to was Oak Road. A quiet and relatively remote road which bordered the adjacent playing fields. It was the place to which, later that evening, you were to take Liberty Squire. You told the jury that your purpose in visiting Oak Road was to spy on women in nearby Claremont Avenue and, being unsuccessful, you then returned to your car. Whether this is true or whether in fact you were scoping out Oak Road as a destination for your victim for easy sex, I cannot be sure. I am sure though that the playing fields was an area that you knew well, having visited there with your own children and having looked at the area on your drone footage.

"Liberty Squire was 21 years old. She had had a troubled past in many ways. But she was from a loving and supportive family. I have heard today the powerful statement from her mother, Lisa Squire, who, with the quiet dignity which she has displayed throughout this trial, spoke movingly of the profound and unimaginable loss which she must endure following the death of her daughter. It is an anguish to which you have condemned her, and all of Liberty’s family, for the rest of their lives.

Miss Squire was the happiest she'd been

"I have no doubt, having heard from her mother and friends, that Liberty had turned a corner in her life. She was flourishing in her studies at Hull University and had made new and good friends. That evening, Liberty went out with her friends to a party intending to go on to a Club. Like many young people on a night out she had too much to drink and the effect of the drink and the extreme cold of the evening affected her behaviour such that she was not permitted entry to the Club. Her friends did what they could to help her home, putting her in a taxi and paying for the fare. Tragically, Liberty never made it to the safety of her home. For some reason she turned away from Wellesley Avenue where she lived to walk down Beverley Road, as seen on CCTV footage weaving her precarious way along the pavement before she slipped over in the snow and ice.

"You spotted Liberty Squire when you left your car on Haworth Street. I have no doubt that from the moment that you first saw her you had her in mind as your next victim. You crossed Beverley Road going into Beresford Avenue but quickly emerged as she moved on up the road. You remained in the shadow of the treeline on the opposite pavement as you tracked her movements, only crossing the road when you were sure that she was alone and after she had disappeared into the entrance of the Endsleigh Centre. From the moment that you intercepted her at the Endsleigh Centre, Liberty Squire did not stand a chance. She was very drunk. She was very cold; the snow was lying in the streets and she was dressed for a night out with bare legs and thin clothing. She was very upset and crying that she wanted her mother. She was confused and it is clear from those who tried to help her that her behaviour was erratic. She had no way of protecting herself from you either physically or mentally.

Relowicz was "guarding his prey" when he saw Miss Squire

"You walked Liberty Squire down Beverley Road towards your car and, having reached Haworth Street, the jury saw footage of you sitting in your car watching Liberty. You were guarding your prey, waiting and watching until the men in the Scenic motorcar which was parked there had left before springing up and moving towards Liberty. I cannot be sure whether there was a struggle in the road and that you physically forced Liberty into your car or whether in her drunk, confused and upset state she was cajoled into getting into your car on the false promise that you would drive her home. Having secured her in your car you drove her straight to Oak Road. I have no doubt that you intended to rape her there.

"Where on the playing fields you raped Liberty Squire, only you know. But rape her you did. Your late account that you had had consensual sex with her was only another attempt by you to adapt your story to fit in with the evidence. That evidence included the discovery of Liberty’s body several weeks after her death and the presence of your semen inside her vagina. Having raped Liberty you assaulted her and put her body, dead or dying, into the tidal river. I have no doubt that your purpose in doing so was to conceal her body and that you intended and hoped that her body would be washed out to sea and never found. It was only by luck that her body was located so many weeks later by fishermen in the Humber Estuary. Whether you put her body in the river on that second occasion that you visited Oak Road, or later that night when you went back to clean up, I do not know. Having looked at the photographs of the scene and considered the distances involved I have no doubt that there would have been sufficient time for you both to rape Liberty and place her body in the river during your second visit shortly after midnight. You were a young and fit man who worked as a butcher. Covering the distances involved, whether dragging or carrying a body, would I find have presented you with no difficulty.

The minimum terms

"I turn then to the minimum term which I must impose. I have already indicated that in fixing the minimum term I intend to reflect the gravity of your offending as a whole, that is, the rape and the murder. I bear in mind that in fixing this minimum term I must guard against double counting, that is, I must avoid taking into account twice factors which aggravate both the offence of murder and of rape. I must also take into account totality, that is, overall, the gravity of your offending.

"In considering the appropriate minimum term to be imposed, I have heard submissions from Mr Wright QC that, for both the rape and the murder, the starting point for the minimum term should be one of 30 years, or approaching 30 years. Mr Saxby QC on your behalf submits that the starting point should be in the order of 15 years for the murder alone with the offence of rape serving as an aggravating factor increasing the term beyond 15 years. I am not persuaded that it is necessary in this instance to resolve those competing submissions. Whether I start at 30 years and adjust the minimum term to take into account the particular features of the offending or start at 15 years and adjust the minimum term upwards would lead me to a similar end point. It is also clear that in approaching the statutory guidance I must avoid an overly mechanistic approach and that I should use the specified starting points to provide a broad framework within which I should exercise my discretion to reach a just sentence.

For the offence of murder

"So far as the offence of murder is concerned, your concealment of Liberty’s body by placing her body in a tidal river is, I find, a significant aggravating factor. Whether she was at that stage dead or only dying, you put her in the river so that she would not be discovered. That she was not discovered for 7 weeks and that when she was her body had been disfigured to the extent described by Dr Matthew Lyall must have been unimaginably harrowing for Liberty’s parents and all of those who loved her. I accept that, so far as the killing was concerned, that offence was not premeditated. I accept that you did not go out that evening intending to kill only for the purpose of sexual gratification. I also accept that you may not have intended to kill Liberty but only cause her serious bodily injury.

For the offence of rape

For the purpose of the minimum term that you will serve, I must also consider the appropriate determinate sentence to be imposed for the offence or rape. I have found that Liberty was particularly vulnerable due to her personal circumstances at the time when your paths crossed; that you took her from a place of relative safety to the desolate playing fields either by force or by duplicity; that so far as your sexual offending that night was concerned there was a significant degree of planning as you prowled the student area looking for a suitably vulnerable victim. Without hesitation, and as accepted realistically by Mr Saxby, this offence falls within the highest category of harm and culpability specified in the Sentencing Guidelines which I must apply. The starting point for this offence is therefore 15 years with a category range of 13 to 19 years. There are many aggravating features. They include: your previous convictions for predatory sexual offences; that you ejaculated during the rape; the location of the rape on a desolate playing field in the perishing cold and the timing in the very early hours of a February morning. There are no mitigating factors.

"Taking all factors into account, I find that the minimum term of imprisonment that you will serve will be one of 27 years.

"Pawel Relowicz stand up.

"For the murder of Liberty Squire the sentence which I impose is one of life imprisonment. I fix the minimum term that you will serve before consideration of release by the Parole Board at 27 years. The minimum term reflects the totality of your offending.

"For the offence of the rape of Liberty Squire I impose a sentence of 18 years’ imprisonment which will be served concurrently with the sentence for murder.

"The victim surcharge will be applied administratively."