CCTV shows final movements of Libby Squire before she was 'raped and murdered by stranger'

CCTV showing the final movements of the university student Libby Squire before she was allegedly raped and murdered by a stranger has been released by police.

The 21-year-old was allegedly lured into a car by Pawel Relowicz, a Polish butcher, while she was walking in the student area in Hull while “drunk and vulnerable” on the night of Jan 31 2019.

Footage shown at Mr Relowicz’s trial at Sheffield Crown Court captures the moment the defendant first spots Ms Squire as she sat on a wall alone on Beverley Road.

He then crosses the road and walks out of sight in a move the prosecution claim was a “fiction” to avoid raising any suspicions.

The student, who had been turned away from a nightclub for being too drunk, can be seen beginning to make her way unevenly back in the direction of her student home on Wellesley Avenue.

The prosecution said Mr Relowicz “stalks” Ms Squire in the shadows on the opposite side of the street, before darting over to intercept her shortly after midnight.

The pair are then seen making their way towards where Mr Relowicz has parked his car on neighbouring Haworth Street.

A separate camera caught several seconds of what the prosecution described as “toing and froing” between the pair close to the vehicle.

Richard Wright QC, for the prosecution, told the jury last week: "There appears to have been a period of several seconds where there was some toing and froing between the defendant and Libby.

“This culminated in her entering his car from the passenger side. Precisely how she got into the vehicle cannot be clearly seen in the footage.

“Whether Libby was forced into the vehicle, an act that would we suggest not have been difficult given her condition at this point, or whether she was persuaded to enter it on the promise of some assistance being rendered to her may not be clear from the CCTV footage."

It was the last time Ms Squire was seen alive.

In the days that followed, a member of the public found a gold digital watch close to where the defendant had been parked.

Mr Wright said: “The watch had a damaged clasp. It was identified by Libby’s mother as having belonged to her and DNA recovered from it confirmed that it was hers.

“Something had caused her to lose it at about the very point on Haworth Street that she had entered the defendant’s vehicle. “

On Tuesday, jurors heard details of Mr Relowicz’s early interviews after being arrested on suspicion of abducting Ms Squire in February 2019.

Ms Squire was still missing at this stage and her body was only found seven weeks later, floating in the mouth of the Humber Estuary.

The prosecution allege Mr Relowicz drove Ms Squire to the nearby Oak Road playing fields, where he raped her and dumped her, “dead or dying”, into the River Hull, which ultimately feeds into the estuary.

Mr Relowicz, however, told police he “felt sorry" for Ms Squire after seeing her crying and offered her a lift home in his car, the court was told.

He insisted he had not “kidnapped anyone” and told detectives: “I walked past the girl and she says to me ‘Stop please’. She said ‘I need help’. And I was asking ‘What’s up?’.

“She went ‘I need to go home, I need my mother’ and she was crying, she was all in tears.”

He added: “She was drunk and it seems to me that either she had been taking something or somebody had given her something. She was behaving strangely.”

Mr Relowicz told police he asked Ms Squire for directions as he drove and she directed him towards the Oak Road playing fields, the court heard.

But he said he told her to get out of his car because she looked like she might vomit and she fell over in the snow and knelt on the floor, crying, the jury was told.

The court heard that Relowicz told police he drove away and saw Ms Squire walking on the pavement.

He said in his interview: “I know nothing more about it. I’ve never seen her since.”

Mr Relowicz claimed in the interview that his wife showed him a picture of the missing student several days later, the court heard.

The defendant denies charges of rape and murder.

The trial continues.