Libby Squire murder: 'Our beautiful girl will always be with us and the love we share will never be taken' say parents of Hull student

Pawel Relowicz, 26, raped the 21-year-old philosophy student on the Oak Road playing field in Hull, before dumping her body in the River Hull.

Miss Squire went missing after a night out in the city with her friends on February 1, 2019. Her body was found almost seven weeks later in the Humber Estuary.

Relowicz, a married father-of-two, was found guilty of rape unanimously bu a jury of seven women and five men, and guilty of murder on a majority of 11 to one after 27 hours and 55 minutes of deliberations.

He will be sentenced tomorrow.

Paying tribute to her daughter and speaking after the verdict, Miss Squire's mother, Lisa Squire 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.

Relowicz, who was found to have committed a series of strange and frightening sex offences after he was arrested, picked up Miss Squire as she wandered around the Beverley Road area of Hull in a confused, upset and drunken state in freezing conditions.

The jury had heard a mass of circumstantial evidence linking Relowicz to Ms Squire's disappearance, despite pathologists being unable to determine how she died.

During three weeks of evidence, the court was told how the Hull University philosophy student had been out with friends, but was so drunk she was refused entry to a club.

Her friends paid a taxi driver to take her home but, instead of going into her shared student house, Ms Squire wandered in a drunken state - falling over in the snow and refusing offers of help from passers-by, until she encountered Relowicz.

Relowicz told the jury he did not kill Ms Squire and said he had consensual sex with her on Oak Road.

Oliver Saxby QC, defending, said there was no evidence that Relowicz had killed her.

Giving evidence through an interpreter, Polish-born Relowicz, of Raglan Street, told the court he was driving around Hull on the evening of Ms Squire's disappearance because he was "looking for a woman to have easy sex".

The defendant - who has convictions for outraging public decency, voyeurism and sexually motivated burglaries - said he parked on Haworth Street with the intention of looking through windows and masturbating.

He told the court he left Ms Squire on Oak Road to walk home and she was alive.

A pathologist told the court he could not determine the cause of Ms Squire's death due to the amount of time she had been in the water.

In a statement after the verdicts, Gerry Wareham, of the CPS, said: "Relowicz robbed a young and vibrant woman of her life and her future. His actions have left her family and friends devastated.

"Relowicz invented a web of lies to explain his actions that night, insisting throughout that he had tried to help Libby find her way home.

"Nothing could be further from the truth. Far from being a good Samaritan, Relowicz preyed upon her, he took advantage of her vulnerable and distressed state and then he raped and murdered her.

"I cannot begin to imagine the suffering Libby's family are enduring. I can only hope that today's verdict can bring them some measure of comfort. Our thoughts remain with them."A butcher has been found guilty of raping and murdering Hull University student Libby Squire."