A butcher accused of raping and murdering a university student from High Wycombe “took advantage” of her and bears a “strong moral responsibility” for what happened on the night she died, a court has heard.
Pawel Relowicz “lied and lied and lied” about what happened when he met Libby Squire in Hull on the evening of January 31 2019, Sheffield Crown Court heard.
Defence barrister Oliver Saxby QC told the jury in his closing speech that the prosecution cannot prove that the 21-year-old student was killed, and he warned them to examine the evidence “with a clear and open mind”.
Polish-born Relowicz, 26, who has admitted committing a series of sexually motivated offences in the 18 months before Ms Squire disappeared, has told the court he had consensual sex with the University of Hull philosophy student after offering her a lift home and left her alive.
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The prosecution’s case is that the butcher, who worked for Karro Foods, in Malton, North Yorkshire, picked up Ms Squire, who was drunk, upset and hypothermic after being refused entry to a nightclub, and drove her to Oak Road playing fields, where he raped her and put her into the River Hull.
On Wednesday, Mr Saxby told the jury: “On his own account, he has taken advantage of a person and a situation. Let there be no question about this.
“Libby Squire is not someone he should have been having sex with, for a whole host of reasons, and she was not someone he should have been leaving on her own in the state she was in.
“As far as Pawel Relowicz is concerned, he bears a responsibility – a moral responsibility, a strong moral responsibility you may think – for what happened.
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“You will think little of him for his previous convictions, you will think even less of him, if that’s possible, for the fact he’s responsible for what happened.”
Mr Saxby said married father-of-two Relowicz had lied repeatedly about what happened.
He said: “He has lied and lied and lied. To himself, to his wife, to the police and in court documents.
“There’s no doubt guilty people lie. Of course they do, to get off, to get away with it. That’s what the prosecution contend here: he’s lying, he’s guilty.
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“But lying is not the preserve of the guilty. Sometimes those who are not guilty lie.”
He added: “It’s a headline. He lied. But please be careful to avoid taking the obvious short-cut and saying ‘he lied so he’s got to be guilty’.”
The trial has heard that Ms Squire’s body was found in the Humber estuary around seven weeks after she went missing and a post-mortem examination could not determine the cause of death.
Mr Saxby told the jury that the prosecution cannot say how Ms Squire died or prove that she was killed, and that the evidence does not prove that Relowicz killed her.
He said: “They cannot say how Libby Squire died. They can’t even say she was killed.
“However much you are reassured that the prosecution don’t have to prove this or that, not being able to prove how the victim died, not being able to prove she was killed, these are two fairly big caveats in a murder case.
“It means one of the crucial aspects of the case, whether she was killed – perhaps the most crucial aspect of the case – the prosecution are forced to rely on inference, on carefully constructed arguments, on theories in reality, to persuade you of what happened.”
Mr Saxby read out Relowicz’s previous convictions, which include voyeurism, masturbating in the street and stealing sex toys and underwear from women’s homes.
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He said the prosecution’s case was that he was: “A sexual predator. Someone whose conduct was on some sort of frantic upward curve. Someone whose conduct on February 1 2019 culminated in him raping and then murdering Libby Squire.”
Mr Saxby said Relowicz had never had any contact with his victims or attempted to do anything to them.
“There’s not a shred of evidence he ever acted in any way even approaching rape and murder,” he told the jury.
Relowicz, of Raglan Street, Hull, denies raping and murdering Ms Squire, who was originally from High Wycombe.
The trial continues.
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