The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Man guilty of Libby’ s rape and murder
Abutcher has been found guilty of raping and murdering a university student before dumping her in a river.
Libby Squire went missing after a night out on February 1 2019, and her body was found almost seven weeks later in an estuary.
Yesterday Pawel Relowicz, 26, was convicted of raping the 21-year-old on a playing field before disposing of her in the River Hull.
Father-of-two Relowicz, who was found to have committed a series of frightening sex offences including voyeurism after he was arrested, picked up the second-year philosophy student as she wandered around the Beverley Road area of Hull in a drunken state in freezing conditions.
He was found guilty after the jury of five men and seven women 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, Sheffield Crown Court heard 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”.
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 before her body was retrieved.
Police Scotland Chief Constable Iain Livingstone has said he supports calls for an inquiry into the malicious prosecutions of former Rangers FC administrators Paul Clark and David Whitehouse.
Mr Clark and Mr Whitehouse were recently awarded £10.5 million in damages for their indictment in 2014 following their involvement in the administration of the Glasgow club in 2012, for which all charges were later dismissed or dropped.
Lord Advocate James Wolffe, who was not in post at the time of the prosecution, this week backed calls for an independent judge-led inquiry.
Mr Livingstone has now also given his support to calls for an inquiry, as he appeared before the public audit and post legislative scrutiny committee at Holyrood.
“I did listen to the debate in the Scottish Parliament yesterday and heard from the Lord Advocate and a number of members,” he said.
“I shared the levels of concern that were expressed and I also share what was the will of Parliament that the role of Police Scotland would be included with any judicial inquiry that is then established.
“I give my full commitment to participate fully with that, I agree that there should be an inquiry into the
circumstances and I give my commitment that the Police Service of Scotland will contribute to and cooperate fully with any inquiry that arises.”
Mr Livingstone also said he had authorised a financial settlement for both men, although he was not allowed to say how much it was.
He told the committee: “I’m allowed to settle issues if I think it is legitimate to do so, and I did do it in this case, and that was within my limit which was £75,000 in respect of each individual.”