Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Butcher jailed for life for murder of student
A“MALIGNANT twist of fate” led a sexual deviant to cross paths with vulnerable 21-year-old Libby Squire on the night he raped and murdered her, a judge said.
Jailing butcher Pawel Relowicz for life with a minimum term of 27 years, Mrs Justice Lambert said he was “very dangerous” and he had dumped the philosophy student’s dead or dying body in the River Hull, hoping it would never be found.
Her mother Lisa Squire read a powerful victim’s statement before sentencing, in which she said she was haunted by the thought of not being there for her daughter on the night of January 31, 2019.
Relowicz, a married father-of-two, was found guilty of rape and murder following a four-week trial at Sheffield Crown Court.
The jury dismissed his claim he had consensual sex, and accepted that he cajoled or forced her into his car, drove to isolated playing fields at Oak Road, Hull, then disposed of her dead or dying body in the river.
The judge said that from the moment the Polish-born meat factory worker spotted Ms Squire, who was drunk, confused and upset in the street, she “did not have a chance”.
She said jurors who watched CCTV of both their movements that night would be “only too conscious of that malignant twist of fate which would lead your paths to cross”.
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 in to their homes to steal intimate items, and masturbating in the street.
“Emboldened” by the fact he had not been stopped, his offending escalated, the judge said.
Ms Squire had gone out with friends and had been refused entry to a nightclub when Relowicz saw her in the street.
Mrs Justice Lambert said “from the moment you intercepted her... Liberty Squire did not stand a chance”.
She said: “There was a significant degree of planning that night as you patrolled the student area looking for a suitable victim.”
One of the aggravating factors in the rape offence was its location - “a desolate playing field in the perishing cold”, the judge said.
The killer tried to evade justice by dumping her in the tidal river, the judge said, and it was was only by chance that a fisherman found her body weeks later in the Humber Estuary.
Mrs Justice Lambert said he was correctly described as having conducted a “perverted campaign of sexually deviant behaviour” by the judge who dealt with his previous offending of voyeurism, outraging public decency and burglary, which happened over 18 months.
She said: “He also considered you to be potentially a very dangerous individual, again he was correct to do so.”
The judge paid tribute to the dignity shown by Ms Squire’s parents, Lisa and Russell Squire, who followed the trial throughout and were in court for the sentencing.
Mrs Squire told the court: “In any times of trouble she wanted me, her mum. “Knowing I was not there when she needed me will haunt me for the rest of my life.”
RUSSIA is prepared for a split with the European Union if the bloc imposes crippling new sanctions amid a dispute over the treatment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the nation’s top diplomat has warned.
In response to a question about Moscow’s willingness to break links with the EU, foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said in televised remarks that Russia does not want to be isolated but must increase its self-sufficiency to face potential EU sanctions.
“We don’t want to be isolated from international life, but we must be ready for that,” he said. “If you want peace, you must prepare for war.”
Asked if Russia is heading towards a split with the European Union, he replied: “We proceed from the assumption that we are ready for that.” He emphasised the importance of economic ties with the 27 EU nations, adding that Moscow would continue engaging in mutually beneficial co-operation, but must prepare for the worst and increasingly rely on its own resources.
“We must achieve that in the economic sphere, if we see again, as we have felt more than once, that sanctions imposed in some areas create risks to our economy, including in the most sensitive spheres, such as supplies of parts and components,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasised that Russia wants to maintain normal ties with the EU but needs to prepare for the worst if the bloc takes hostile actions.
“If we face a destructive course that will hurt our infrastructure, our interests, Russia must be ready in advance for such unfriendly steps,” Mr Peskov said during a call with reporters.
“We must be self-reliant. We must ensure our security in the most sensitive strategic areas and be prepared to replace everything we could be deprived of with national infrastructure in case madness prevails and such unfriendly actions take place.”
European Commission spokesman Peter Stano said the EU welcomes “mutually beneficial co-operation whenever the other side is ready for such a co-operation and for such a dialogue,” adding that Moscow has “indicated that they are not really willing to go in this direction”.
German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Andrea Sasse described Mr Lavrov’s comments as “really disconcerting and completely incomprehensible to us”. She told reporters in Berlin that foreign minister Heiko Maas had made Germany’s grievances with Russia clear but also emphasised that “we are interested in co-operation with Russia”.
Russia-EU relations have sunk to new lows over Mr Navalny’s arrest and imprisonment. The political foe of Russian President Vladimir Putin was arrested on January 17 on returning from Germany, where he spent five months recuperating from the nerve agent poisoning he blamed on the Kremlin. Russian authorities have denied the allegations.
Last week, a court in Moscow sent him to prison for two years and eight months for violating terms of his probation while in Germany. The probation was from a 2014 embezzlement conviction that the European Court of Human Rights ruled unlawful.
EDF Energy says analysis of controversial plans by nuclear power station Hinkley Point C to dump mud from the Bristol Channel into the sea off Portishead has found the operation poses no risk to humans or the environment.
The firm wants to resume dredging operations this year to deposit hundreds of thousands of tonnes of sediment as part of works to install water cooling pipes under the channel.
It is considering two locations: Cardiff Grounds, two miles off the coast from the Welsh capital, and a private disposal site off Portishead on the English side of the water.
In a message to its stakeholders in the South West and South Wales yesterday, the French energy giant said that independent scientific testing of mud samples found “insignificant” levels of radioactive elements normally found as by-products of a nuclear reactor.
The update also said the findings from government marine scientific agency CEFAS confirmed that low levels of radioactivity in the mud were “predominantly naturally occurring”, with artificial input from human activity “very low” and compliant with UK law.
EDF said that the latest testing went “above and beyond internationally recognised best practice” with more samples taken from a greater depth and with a greater range of analysis than previous CEFAS studies.
It added that its own Environmental Impact Assessment of dredging and disposal at Portishead had concluded it would have “no significant” effect on coastal and marine habitats. An environmental statement for the Cardiff Grounds site will follow “in due course”, according to EDF.
Hinkley Point C Harbour master Will Barker said: “This operation poses no threat to humans, wildlife or the local communities at all.
“The mud itself is a standard material that we find flowing up and down the Bristol Channel on a dayto-day basis.”
The announcement marks the start of a public consultation on the project’s application to the Marine Management Organisation for disposal at the Portishead site, which will be open for comment until March 26.
Environmental campaigners in Wales previously voiced concerns that mud dumped by the power plant, based near Bridgwater in Somerset, could be contaminated with nuclear waste.
In 2018 an online petition attracted hundreds of thousands of signatures and prompted a full debate in Wales’ Senedd.
But the claims were dismissed by the Welsh Government and Natural Resources Wales, the body EDF is making its application to for the Cardiff Grounds licensed disposal site.
Both said the sediment was no different to elsewhere in the channel and posed no threat to people or the environment.
Either Cardiff Grounds or Portishead will be used for the entirety of the disposal and the volume will not be split across the two sites.
EDF said that a decision on which site will be used will be made at a later date, depending on regulatory approval and project schedule.
The company is planning to dump up to 469,000m3 of mud, compared with a previous estimate of 600,000m3.
According to the energy firm, the mud has to be disposed of within the Severn Area of Conservation in order to maintain the balance of sediment and mud in the area.