Libby Squire murder trial: Defendant's urges 'out of control'

The sexual urges of a man accused of raping and murdering a student were "completely out of control", a court has heard.

The body of Libby Squire, 21, was recovered from the Humber Estuary seven weeks after she went missing following a night out in Hull on 31 January 2019.

Pawel Relowicz, 26, denies raping and killing her before dumping her body.

Sheffield Crown Court heard he regularly targeted young women in the city between 2017 and 2019.

The Polish butcher told jurors he had consensual sex with the University of Hull student on the night she disappeared after she was refused entry to a nightclub.

But he told jurors he had not targeted her for "easy sex".

Under cross-examination, prosecutor Richard Wright QC asked him: "Do you agree in 2017, 2018 and 2019 you were regularly targeting young women and committing sexually motivated offences?"

Mr Relowicz replied: "Yes, this is correct."

He also agreed when Mr Wright asked if his sexual urges were "completely out of control".

But the married father-of-two denied his "sexual urges were increasing" in the period leading up to Ms Squire's disappearance.

Mr Wright asked the defendant whether Ms Squire was "the opportunity you were looking for".

"If it wasn't Libby Squire it would have been someone else wouldn't it?" the prosecutor asked.

"That's not correct," replied Mr Relowicz.

The 26-year-old told the court he had "a problem" with voyeurism and performing sex acts in public, but he denied he was doing it to scare women.

The jury heard Mr Relowicz offered Ms Squire a lift home but had stopped his car on Oak Road in Hull because he thought she was going to be sick, and the pair had sex on the side of the road.

Prosecutors had claimed he was "cruising" the student area of the city in search of a victim before "intercepting" Ms Squire on Beverley Road, where she was last seen.

He told the court he had "only wanted to help" Ms Squire and maintained he neither raped nor killed the philosophy student, who was from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire.

Asked why he had not taken her to the police station, he said it was because he could not speak English and added: "What could I explain?"

Mr Relowicz admitted he lied to police because he had "two children and a wife and I didn't want her to find out I had cheated on her".

"I didn't do anything to Libby. I didn't kill her, I didn't rape her and I left her where I said I left her," he told the court.

The trial continues.

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