Lisa Squire said she wakes up every day with a “sense of disappointment” that she is still alive. The nurse, 50, said knowing she was not there when her daughter, needed her most will “haunt me for the rest of my life”. In a harrowing victim impact statement she read out in court, Lisa added that she “longs to die” so she can “be with her girl”. Meanwhile, Libby’s dad Russ, 56, said: “I’ve lost my little girl and I’m heartbroken.”
The couple, from High Wycombe, Bucks, spoke before Pawel Relowicz was sentenced to life for raping and possibly strangling student Libby, 21, and throwing her “dead or dying” body into a river in Hull.
The horrific attack followed years of offending by the married dad of two – whose youngest son was three months old when Libby was killed – including voyeurism, performing sex acts in public and stealing underwear and sex toys.
He admitted nine such offences but police believe there were more.
Yesterday his victims questioned why Polish butcher Relowicz, 26, was “just allowed to carry on targeting vulnerable women”.
They also alleged that police did not treat their reports seriously enough and it was only after Relowicz was arrested over Libby that officers linked him to a string of other sexually motivated crimes.
His first known victim said her life came close to falling apart after Relowicz stuck his head through her open bedroom window to watch her having sex.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said: “I just hope that the police are able to learn from this horrible series of crimes and are able to catch the next Pawel Relowicz before his actions have deadly consequences.”
She added: “People should be able to report things and have them properly investigated without worrying about assumptions being made, corners being cut or possible victim-blaming. I felt the police needed a bit of a push to take it seriously, take the evidence and take fingerprints.
“This man wasn’t careful about where he left his DNA – I would have thought the technology must exist that when another offence is committed it can flag it up.”
Another victim claimed Relowicz was “just allowed to carry on” targeting vulnerable women.
She added: “These things shouldn’t be taken lightly. It might be somebody who’s going to go on to do more similar offences or, as we’ve seen tragically, in this case, something far, far worse.”
Meanwhile Laura Richards, the former head of Scotland Yard’s Homicide Prevention Unit, said: “These cases were not prioritised or seen as a linked series despite being predatory stalking-related offences, which are precursor behaviours to other serious crimes.
“Relowicz should have been arrested far earlier and Libby Squire’s rape and murder may well have been prevented.”
But Senior Investigating Officer Martin Smalley said an internal investigation had concluded the Humberside force had done “everything possible” to catch Relowicz before he killed Libby.
The monster targeted her as she sat slumped on a street corner after a night out drinking with friends.
After driving her to a remote park he raped her and, it is believed, strangled her then dumped her in the River Hull. Her body wasn’t found for seven weeks meaning a cause of death could not be ascertained.
Yesterday as Judge Christina Lambert QC jailed Relowicz at Sheffield Crown Court, she said he’d become “emboldened” in his offending as he was “confident he could not, and would not be caught”.
She added: “From the moment you intercepted her, Liberty Squire did not stand a chance.”
