Relevant reading for those keen to downplay the seriousness of CB’s criminal history and who claim that his is not the profile of a murderer, from an article in today’s Sunday Times:
Lisa Squire remembers the precise moment in 2019 her world changed. “It was nine minutes past 1am on February the first,” she says. Squire, a nurse in the maternity ward at Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire, was doing a night shift. Her eldest daughter, Libby, 21, was in her second year at Hull University studying philosophy. Squire got a call from Libby’s friends.
“They said they couldn’t find her. Immediately, I just knew that this was really serious.” It was the beginning of a nightmare that, almost seven weeks later, led to Libby’s body being pulled out of the Humber estuary and culminated in the conviction last year of Pawel Relowicz for rape and murder. Relowicz, then 24, was a butcher and father of two. It later emerged he had a history of deviant sexual behaviour. He was sentenced to life with the possibility of parole only after 27 years.
Libby had gone out with friends but had been turned away from the nightclub for being too drunk. Her friends put her in a taxi home. Instead of going into her house, Libby went for a walk to clear her head. She was then picked up by Relowicz.
Squire with her mother Lisa who is now campaigning for “low level” offences such as flashing to be taken more seriously by police forces
Squire with her mother Lisa who is now campaigning for “low level” offences such as flashing to be taken more seriously by police forces
HUMBERSIDE POLICE/PA
He had no criminal record, but police found sex toys and women’s underwear in the back of his car and were able to link him to eight crimes in the preceding 18 months, almost all involving women and most of a sexual nature. Squire believes there were probably many more crimes that were never reported.
That is why Squire, 52, who lives in High Wycombe, has been campaigning for earlier intervention in lower-level sex crimes, including referrals to programmes for sexual offenders. It is also why she and Libby’s friends have taken part in a documentary to tell the full story of Libby’s death and the failures that lead to it. Libby, Are You Home Yet? airs on Sky Crime on Thursday.
Last week Baroness Casey of Blackstock, who was the first independent commissioner for victims and witnesses, published her interim report into failings at the Metropolitan police, triggered by, among other things, the murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens, a police officer who is also alleged to have exposed himself four times to women.
Casey flagged up widespread misogyny in the force. In her final report, which is due to be published in February, she is expected to address the way that perpetrators often start with lower-level offences before their behaviour escalates. Squire agrees: “I worked with a criminologist who said that while you can’t say that all ‘non-contact’ sexual offenders will go on to become rapists or murderers, you can say that most rapists and murderers started out with non-contact offences. That is why we need to take this stuff seriously.”
Sarah Everard was murdered by serving police officer Wayne Couzens, who had been reported multiple times for exposing himself to women
Sarah Everard was murdered by serving police officer Wayne Couzens, who had been reported multiple times for exposing himself to women
METROPOLITAN POLICE/REUTERS
The picture of Relowicz that emerged was horrifying. His confidence appeared to have grown as the offending carried on. On one occasion he followed a woman home and masturbated on her front door. On another occasion he put his head through the window of a young woman’s room when she was having sex with her boyfriend. He fled, leaving a used condom. After picking up Libby he went home and watched porn before going out and exposing himself again.
One of Relowicz’s early victims, who caught him staring at her through her bedroom window, says she felt ashamed of how upset she was by the incident.
“It’s because we call them low-level sex crimes,” Squire says. “We should just call them sex crimes, because they are. We, as women, have been conditioned to accept it. Because nobody was hurt. Well, not that time. But next time somebody might be.”
Reporting is crucial. “In reality, the police are not going to go out and catch that man who did it to you tonight or yesterday, but it’s about joining dots, isn’t it?” says Squire. “And if it becomes obvious there is somebody who is doing these things, they may be able to catch him in the weeks or months to come.” If the officer isn’t interested, “find one who is and report it again,” she says.
Warning systems should be strengthened, she believes. If there is a string of offences in a particular area, particularly near a university, students should be told. “I’m not victim blaming, I’m being sensible and, yes, we do actually have to protect ourselves,” Squire says.
When Libby’s body was found after 48 days, traces of Relowicz’s sperm were present and he was charged with rape and murder. The trial took place in lockdown, shortly after Everard was killed. The more muted coverage of Libby’s case may have been to do with the fact that Libby had been drinking.
Squire saw a lot of victim-blaming in the reporting of the case. “Yes, she’d been drinking but so were thousands of other young people on the same night,” she says. Libby had mental health struggles in her teens, but was the happiest she had been in years.
Relowicz has never admitted to killing Libby or revealed how she died. Her body had been in the water too long for pathologists to know if she was dead when she went into the water. That is why, three years on, her mother is fighting to meet the man who killed her.
“I’m under no illusion that he’s ever going to tell me what happened because he still says he hasn’t done anything,” she says. Relowicz has agreed in principle to a meeting but the details are still being ironed out.
Squire tries to remember Libby as she was, warm, loving and “genuinely the funniest person I have ever met. I think maybe we had such a strong bond because I was only ever going to get 21 years and we packed everything into that. If I could do it all over again and still have the same outcome, I would do it in a heartbeat.”
