Libby mum: I fear her sister was spiked too
Mum of murdered student calls for action as her 2nd girl begins at uni
THE mum of murdered Libby Squire is calling for tougher action on the spiking epidemic and fears her younger daughter Beth has been targeted as she begins university.
Lisa Squire, 51, believes 21-year-old Libby was also spiked as a first-year student, a year and a half before she was raped and killed on a night out in 2019.
She told how Libby had called her complaining of blacking out
Nurse Lisa said: “She’d been out partying and she fell off a flight of stairs or something. I said to her, ‘How much had you drunk?’ and she said, ‘Not that much, but I feel terrible, I’ve got a headache, I don’t really remember what happened. I feel like I’ve got this massive fog over me’. I said to her, ‘It sounds to me like you’ve been spiked.’ The after-effects were different from her normal post-alcohol evenings.”
Alarm bells rang again when Beth, 19, called after starting her studies last month. Lisa, also mum to Maisy, 15, and Joe, 14, said: “She sounded so different, I was worried she’d been spiked. The next day she didn’t remember much about it. It’s so worrying. I’m having to say, ‘Watch what you’re drinking, watch who’s around you’.”
Of the recent reports of “spiking by
injection”, Lisa said: “Where are they getting the chemicals and the needles for that? And are those needles clean? There’s a whole other problem there. And what type of person is doing this? These are more red flags.
“If a girl’s had a couple of drinks you’re not necessarily going to feel anything. This is another safety issue for women.”
When Libby went missing after a night out with pals in Hull in 2019, it was initially feared she may have been spiked as in CCTV footage she appeared to be in a much worse state than her friends. But toxicology reports found no sign of drugs. Pawel Relowicz, 26, was jailed for life for her murder in February this year.
Lisa of High Wycombe, Bucks, said: “I don’t suppose we’ll ever know but it was something we considered at the time.”
She does not believe the “girls’ night in” boycott of clubs is the answer. She said: “Why should we put the onus on the women to keep themselves safe?”
Instead she wants culprits tagged and banned from clubs and pubs.
Research found one in seven young women and one in 12 young men believe they had been spiked. The Alcohol Education Trust poll found 35% were spiked at parties and 28% in clubs, and 23% of drinks spiked were non-alcoholic.
Boss Helena Conibear said: “This can happen to anyone, anywhere.”