A HORRIFIED resident heard the “desperate” screams of tragic Libby Squire for seven minutes the night she vanished, a court heard today. The 21-year-old student was allegedly driven to a remote playing field by Polish butcher Pawel Relowicz, 26, where she was raped, murdered then dumped in a river. She was discovered six weeks later […]
A HORRIFIED resident heard the “desperate” screams of tragic Libby Squire for seven minutes the night she vanished, a court heard today.
The 21-year-old student was allegedly driven to a remote playing field by Polish butcher Pawel Relowicz, 26, where she was raped, murdered then dumped in a river.
She was discovered six weeks later on March 20, 2019, in the Humber estuary by a fishing boat – a gold necklace bearing the letter ‘L’ still hanging around her neck.
Now Mr Alfred, a resident whose home backed on to the Oak Road playing fields has revealed he heard “screams” on February 1 when Libby disappeared and saw a man running away.
He told Sheffield Crown Court: “I woke up, looked at my phone to check a text. It was 12.14am and around a minute or two after that’s when I heard the first scream.
“The screams were far away but they were loud enough to reach my bedroom, around roughly 150 metres. Not loud to me, but loud enough to reach my bedroom.”
He says the “desperate screams” lasted from “four to seven minutes”.
He continued: “Initially, some screams were intermittent with 30 seconds or a minute between them.
“At first I sort of ignored them then the second one was a pattern to them and then that’s what sort of made me think – it’s hard because where I live is near the uni accommodation is teenagers on the park, girls screaming, people out having parties on the park so you tend to ignore it. It happens all the time.
“Then I heard the screams again and when I looked I couldn’t see anyone on the park.
“The screams were enough to make me think, ‘what could that be?’ but it was the pattern – they weren’t constant and that’s what sort of stood out for me.
“They sounded like desperation.”
Mr Alford believes the screams carried on for “four to seven minutes.”
January 31, 2019
Libby leaves her student home at Wellesley Avenue with friends at about 8.30pm and they walked to another student house on Cromer Street together
The group leave at about 11pm to walk to The Welly nightclub, at the junction of Wellington Lane and Beverley Road, where they arrive at 11.20pm
Libby is refused entry to the The Welly and is put in a taxi by her friends just before 11.30pm
The taxi drops her in Wellesley Avenue but she does not go home. She instead walks towards Beverley Road where she falls over in the street
Libby enters another house on Wellesley Avenue after the occupants heard her crying. She says she wants to go home but sets off towards Beverley Road, dropping her keys outside the house she left
She is then approached by a woman who tried to help her outside the former convent at the Endsleigh Centre, on Beverley Road
Two men try to help Libby as she lays in the snow near the junction of Haworth Road and Beverley Road. They were there from 11.40pm to 11.49pm
Another woman steps in to help as she sits on the floor near a bus stop close to the same junction. A supermarket manager spots her in the same location
Relowicz’s Vauxhall Astra arrives at the end of Haworth Street at 11.57pm. The defendant gets out of the car, crosses the road to Beresford Avenue and tracks Libby as she walks back up Beverley Road
February 1, 2019
They interact outside the Endsleigh Centre and entered the grounds before walking back to the car at the end of Haworth Street
Relowicz drives off from Haworth Street at 12.08am with Libby in the car
They arrive at Oak Road playing fields at 12.11am
A man living in the house at the entrance to the playing fields wakes at 12.14am and “after a period that he thought was a couple of minutes” hears a woman screaming in the park. The man then sees a young man running from the park “perhaps a few minutes after the last scream”
At 12.19am, CCTV captures Relowicz’s indicators flashing as he unlocks his car
Relowicz arrives home in Raglan Street at 12.23am
He leaves home again at 2.22amand drives back to Oak Road playing fields, arriving at 2.25am. He stays for a little over four minutes
Relowicz then drives around, arriving in Alexandra Road at 2.51am, walking over Newlands Avenue and performing a sex act in the street
He arrives back at Raglan Street but walks back to Newland Avenue where he is captured “walking up and down the road in that area for no apparent reason and exhibiting some strange behaviour”
The prosecution say Relowicz raped and murdered Miss Squire at Oak Road playing fields after arriving at 12.11am. They say he put her dead or dying into the River Hull, which runs along the north east of the park. They say this could have been at the 12.11am visit or the later one at 2.25am.
March 20, 2019
Libby’s body is found in the Humber Estuary, off Spurn Point, by a fishing boat
He said: “I was just looking out of the window, wondering if it was a group of people or if I could see anyone coming off the park.”
He said he was watching for “three or four minutes” before he saw a “male walking off the park.”
He said: “He was walking in a manner where he wasn’t looking behind, asserting where he wanted to go, like he wanted to get off the park.
“When I first saw him, he was walking off the park with his head straight forward and moving with an urgency and then he left.”
He describes the man as wearing either “fitted dark coloured joggers” or “cuffed jeans” and a “bomber style jacket.”
The jury have been told Relowicz had pleaded guilty to nine sexually motivated offences, committed in the months before Libby Squire’s death including voyeurism, outraging public decency and burglary.
Relowicz, who is using a Polish interpreter to watch proceedings, denies rape and murder.
CCTV footage shows the tragic moment Libby Squire walked away from her front door and into the path of a butcher.
Libby can be seen in the clip walking from “the safety of her front door” shortly before Pawel Relowicz allegedly drove her to the remote playing field.
Relowicz is said to have identified Libby as a “target”, and later “darted” across the road to “intercept her”, Sheffield Crown Court heard.
