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00:01Every 90 seconds, someone is reported missing.
00:06Many return to their families.
00:09For others, something has gone seriously wrong.
00:14And I said, is Libby OK? And she said, no, we can't find her.
00:17In Hull, a young female student is missing.
00:21They decided they needed to ring the police to alert them to a disappearance.
00:25Libby had knocked on their door in a distressed state.
00:28Their disappearance triggers a city-wide search.
00:31This man is now shadowing her.
00:34What happens in the police investigation that follows?
00:38They would have been taking samples to establish whether any sexual offences had taken place.
00:45What happens to the family at its heart?
00:48The whole family is missing, especially me and your dad.
00:52When missing, turns to murder.
01:08Libby was born on January 1st, 1998, and she was our first-born daughter.
01:15She came along after us and I had been together for eight years and we'd been married for two years.
01:22And she was an amazing baby. She was a really easy baby.
01:26She was just everything we wanted and, you know, I was really keen to be a mum, so she made
01:31me a mum.
01:34She was very chatty. It was fairly obvious from being quite young that she was going to be a talker.
01:39She was very funny, incredibly funny.
01:43Libby was very loyal, very honest.
01:46If I was to come to her with a scenario or question, she would tell me straight, even if it
01:50wasn't what I wanted to hear.
01:51Which I love about her, because she just kept it real.
01:55Yeah, she's just amazing.
02:00I think Libby was very unlike a lot of the people I had previously met in my life.
02:09She was a joy to be around.
02:11I think one thing that really stuck out for me, and still to this day, she had a way of
02:17being so passionate and so kind and loving about things that other people were interested in.
02:24I think we always had this sort of childish, fun friendship that started when we were young and sort of
02:32progressed as we got older.
02:33Like, we obviously aged as people, but I don't think our friendship really matured because we were just both really
02:40silly and did stupid things together.
02:41It was really organic.
02:45Libby's the eldest of four siblings.
02:49She was an amazing big sister. She liked them to know that she was the big sister.
02:53And she very affectionately called Beth, Maisie and Jo the children, which always used to make me giggle.
03:05And we were incredibly close when she became older. So when she was in her early teens, she had some
03:11mental health issues and had started self-harming.
03:15She had an eating disorder and, you know, some anxiety and depression.
03:22We became really close through that. Libby knew that she could come to me and tell me anything and I
03:29would, you know, listen without judgment.
03:32She still carried on with her studies and was still, you know, very academic.
03:37But her mental health impacted her school, so she took a gap year.
03:42She worked really hard on her mental health and really achieved some amazing things.
03:48And she always had wanted to go to university.
03:54Libby moves to the East Yorkshire city of Hull to start her new life as a student.
04:05Me and Libby actually first met when we turned up to a lecture that had been cancelled.
04:09We were both doing philosophy. I think she had a bit more of a passion for it than I did
04:13at the time.
04:14I knew straight away that me and Libby would be good friends.
04:17She put me at ease right away and I just kind of felt comfortable around her.
04:21And when she started university in 2017, she was in the best place I think she'd been ever.
04:27Ever. She was in a really good place.
04:31And looking forward to it. Massively looking forward to her new life as a university student.
04:41So we had all been invited to a pre-drinks at one of our friends' houses.
04:46I turned up late as I normally do.
04:49Students, including Libby, go to the house to drink before heading out into town.
04:56This is where we had the pre-drinks, where everyone met, where everyone was in such good spirits beforehand.
05:02Yeah, we'd just finished our exams, so everyone's in such a good mood.
05:07After the drinks, Libby and her friends make their way to local nightclub, the Welly.
05:14We were all leaving the pre-drinks quite hastily around because they were quite keen to get to Welly.
05:20It wasn't a grand goodbye where I gave everyone a hug or anything, but just a throwaway goodbye after we
05:26went the other direction.
05:28I just remember it being absolutely freezing. There was kind of slushy snow on the ground that had been there
05:34for quite a while.
05:35And I just remember it being, yeah, absolutely Baltic. Particularly so that night.
05:40So I went to work on the Thursday night. I checked my phone.
05:45And I saw I had a missed call from Millie, her friend.
05:49And I thought, oh, Millie's phoning.
05:51And I thought, well, it's not unusual for Libby to use somebody else's phone to ring me because she very
05:54often lost her phone or broke her phone or didn't take her phone out with her.
05:59So I called Millie back and said, oh, sorry, Millie, I missed your call. Is everything OK?
06:06And I said, is Libby OK? And she said, no, we can't find her.
06:12She explained that they'd been to a club, that she'd been drinking before they went to the club and she
06:16hadn't got in.
06:17So they'd sent her home in a taxi and that Libby was to ring them when she got home or
06:23text them when she got home to say I'm home.
06:25Libby hadn't texted them, said, given it an hour.
06:28So about half past midnight, they called the house and the housemate said, no, Libby hasn't, hasn't turned up.
06:40Now, when her friends contacted someone else who was living in the house, they realised that Libby had left her
06:45phone at home.
06:46So something was unusual.
06:48And the friends realised that they needed to go and look for her, basically.
06:50Initially, they thought that maybe she had gone to one of her neighbours' houses because she'd sometimes knocked on their
06:56door after a night out.
06:57But actually, they couldn't find her anywhere.
06:59They even drove to a local takeaway.
07:01And it was in the early hours of the morning on February the 1st that they decided they needed to
07:05ring the police to alert them to her disappearance.
07:09That night was the worst night ever.
07:13Libby's friends and family are really worried now, so much so that they call the police.
07:18And the procedure in this situation would be that local uniform officers would attend and take a missing person report.
07:25And part of that process is to get an understanding of the person that's been reported missing, build up a
07:30picture of their life.
07:32And the police start doing this.
07:34And when they start to build up the picture, what they're seeing is this is really out of character for
07:39Libby.
07:40Libby's not the sort of person to go missing.
07:42But what sort of a person is she? What is her background?
07:46By this point, the police had been informed. They were informed about 3 o'clock in the morning, so I
07:50was also having communication with the police.
07:52And she hasn't called me. That was the thing. She hadn't called me.
07:55Now, she would stop strangers in the street and ask to borrow their phone to ring me.
07:59And she hadn't. And I knew if she was in trouble, she would ring me.
08:03And I had nothing from her. And it had been eight hours.
08:08And I don't think we ever went eight hours without a message or a text.
08:12When police take a missing person report, they're classified as either low, medium or high risk.
08:19And they come to this by looking at the person that's gone missing.
08:23Is this out of character? What do we know about them and their lifestyle?
08:26And one of the things that now will be concerning the police is that Libby has a history of mental
08:32health.
08:33Is this a reason she's gone missing? And does this raise the concern around her?
08:38And this is really out of character. Where is she? She was expected to be home.
08:41She's left the phone at home. So she's going to be hard to contact.
08:45And it's snowing. It's really cold. And she's been drinking.
08:49And that's going to really raise the concerns now for the police.
08:55Detectives know Libby's disappearance is out of the ordinary.
09:00This is now a high risk missing persons inquiry, which means there will be lots of resources put into it
09:07to try and find Libby.
09:15The search for Libby was as extensive as you can imagine.
09:20Hull is a city that has a number of rivers associated with it.
09:24A lot of water courses that obviously presents a danger.
09:28A lot of open space.
09:30And there was a massive mobilisation of police search teams, volunteer teams, the student population.
09:37Everybody was out looking for Libby.
09:40I remember saying she has to be somewhere. People don't just disappear.
09:43But there had been no sightings of her. Nobody knew where she was.
09:47And that was the worst feeling.
09:51A horrible feeling.
09:55A fraud. Anybody knew she disappeared into thin air.
10:00The police need to retrace Libby's steps prior to her disappearance.
10:06They will now be knocking on doors trying to find witnesses, looking at CCTV in the area.
10:11Building up a picture of Libby's life from her friends and family to try and identify somewhere where she may
10:16have gone to.
10:17But really they need to work out where has she gone.
10:20So they tracked down the taxi driver who dropped her off.
10:23Did he know where she'd gone?
10:25Well he described dropping her off outside her house and seeing her heading towards it.
10:31A set of Libby's keys were found in the house of another group of girls who lived on the corner
10:36of the road where Libby lived.
10:38And so what had happened is after she'd gone towards her house, she'd changed her mind, walked up up the
10:44road.
10:45And these girls reported that Libby had knocked on their door in a distressed state.
10:50They hadn't really been able to get any sense from her at all.
10:53And at that point she'd dropped her keys on a distinctive key ring in their garden.
10:59She'd gone, they'd tried to help her, she didn't want to be helped.
11:02She'd gone away and then she'd walked on up the road.
11:10The detectives scour local CCTV for any trace of Libby.
11:16The house outside which Libby's keys have been found is on the corner of the main road.
11:22And that will open up options for the police in terms of CCTV.
11:26Buses that may be going past, cars that are going past with dash cam footage.
11:30So the fact she's now in a more built up busy area could now start to give clues as to
11:35where she may have gone.
11:39So Libby lived on Wellesley Avenue.
11:41CCTV picked her up leaving Wellesley Avenue and walking onto Beverley Road which is a main road,
11:47very busy road running through the student area.
11:49And what they can see from this is that Libby has walked up the road to a bus stop.
11:55And there she'd started to interact with some people.
11:59These people had concerns about Libby.
12:01She'd clearly been drinking and it was cold.
12:03She was a lone female, young female on her own out that night.
12:07And they had obvious concerns.
12:10And they did try to help her but she didn't want the help, she didn't want to engage.
12:15Now at this stage nothing in this footage seemed untoward.
12:20The two witnesses left Libby at this point and she was at the bus stop.
12:25And she remained there for some time, whether she was sheltering from the weather or not.
12:29It's hard to say.
12:31But then a man emerged from a side road.
12:34Didn't speak to or interact with her.
12:37Almost as if he was deliberately ignoring her across the road and went down a side street opposite.
12:44He was then seen to emerge from that side street.
12:48Libby then leaves the bus stop and starts walking up Beverley Road.
12:55And what is of concern now that can be seen on the CCTV is this man, he's now shadowing her.
13:03He's mirroring her direction up the road.
13:07Almost as if he is lurking now in the darkness on the other side of the street.
13:15Libby now reaches a disused convent.
13:18Which is quite a dark area of the street.
13:22The man crosses the road at this dark point of the street and he approaches Libby.
13:31For a few seconds they disappear and the pair of them walk into this disused convent.
13:39We saw Libby and this man emerging from the entrance way to the convent and they tracked back towards the
13:46bus stop where Libby had been.
13:48What we can see is that it appears that Libby is voluntarily following the man.
13:54And it's here that they have picked up on a different camera from inside a builder's firm.
14:02And what you saw there was this man sat in his car with the door open with his legs out
14:09on the pavement.
14:10Whilst Libby was sort of on the corner of the road.
14:13And you might wonder what was he doing there.
14:15And it's only when another car moves away that had been sitting there with some occupants in it.
14:22That the man then approaches Libby and the pair of them get into his car.
14:29Why would he be waiting for this car seemingly to leave before he invites Libby into his car.
14:37When you're conducting these types of investigations CCTV isn't always perfect.
14:43And in some instances there could be things that obscure it.
14:47And that's what happens here.
14:48We couldn't actually see one of these quirks of evidence.
14:52How she got into the car.
14:54Was it completely voluntary or was it some kind of threat.
14:58It's really difficult to tell at this stage.
15:00But we do know that she gets into the car and the car now drives off.
15:09Once you know that Libby has got into a car.
15:11And she's left Hayworth Street in that vehicle.
15:15That's when the police can start to widen this CCTV net.
15:21And by that painstaking investigation they were able to start to track the movement of that vehicle.
15:29So they could follow that car and it left Hayworth Street.
15:32And it eventually ended up on the playing fields at Oak Road.
15:37A short distance away.
15:41The important thing about Oak Road was that we knew that they both arrived at Oak Road.
15:47They'd both been in the car.
15:49There'd been no moment where Libby could have got out of the car.
15:51What we also knew from Oak Road is that only the driver left that area.
15:57So something had happened at Oak Road.
15:59As soon as the police knew that there was a potential scene.
16:03There's another place where you can deploy officers.
16:05You can search for clues.
16:07You can search for Libby.
16:08You can try and find out where she is.
16:11Of course at the same time you're still tracking that car.
16:15If Libby's not in it you need to know who was.
16:17So you're establishing where did it go?
16:19What model was it?
16:21Can you get the number place?
16:22Who was the driver?
16:28It's been four days since Libby's disappearance.
16:32While the police analysed the CCTV footage, Libby's family appealed to the public for her safe return.
16:42Please get in touch with us any way you can.
16:44I just sort of said, you know, I just need to know you're safe.
16:46Please let me know that you're safe if you can.
16:51We're all really missing you.
16:53And I just sort of said it's breaking my heart not knowing where you are.
17:00The police's media strategy started to really have an impact.
17:05And the members of the public were coming forward with various bits of information.
17:09But now some really important information has come from one particular witness who lives near to Oak Road.
17:20They hear a female screaming.
17:23And then they see a man running past their house.
17:28And this all lines up with the CCTV that the police now have of this car driving into Oak Road,
17:35the car park there.
17:37So this is now going to start to really cause concerns as to what may have happened to Libby.
17:46The police urgently need to speak to the man in the car from the CCTV.
17:50The police were able to establish the registration number and make of this vehicle.
17:57And they were also able to establish some pretty good photographs of the person who was driving it from the
18:03footage.
18:07Police can now identify this man.
18:09He's Pawel Relewicz.
18:12A 24-year-old man originally from Poland.
18:15He's a butcher.
18:16And he lives nearby in Raglan Street with his wife and two young children.
18:28So in the early hours of February the 6th, police swooped on his home address and they were able to
18:32arrest him there.
18:34Relewicz was arrested and interviewed in relation to the disappearance of Libby.
18:41And essentially he said he had nothing to do with it.
18:44He had no idea what it was and denied any interaction with Libby.
18:50Now in the days after Pawel Relewicz's arrest, we were expecting him to be charged at some point with the
18:56disappearance, the abduction of Libby Squire.
18:58But when the announcement from the police came through at the end of the 48 hours that they're legally allowed
19:03to hold him,
19:03he was actually charged with a whole load of unrelated crimes and it was much more serious than any of
19:08us had realised.
19:09One of the processes that they will be going through when somebody's arrested for a serious crime like this is
19:15that they would take his fingerprints and his DNA.
19:20Now this is the first time the police would have had that from him,
19:24which would have involved now loading it onto the national DNA database.
19:30The DNA on that database gets there by one of two ways.
19:34Either by people getting arrested, providing their DNA and getting loaded on, but also from crime scenes.
19:42What will often happen is that samples are taken from a crime scene
19:46and the person that's committed the crime has left that sample there, hasn't been arrested before.
19:51So it will sit there, awaiting, hopefully in the future, that person gets arrested and the police can marry up
19:59the arrested person's DNA with the crime scene samples from the past.
20:04And that's exactly what happened.
20:06And so they're interviewing this man on suspicion of the disappearance of Libby Squire, but they're getting these hits for
20:13unsolved, unlinked burglaries and sexual offences, voyeurism, exposing himself to young women in the street, committing burglaries of women's houses.
20:25That sort of, you know, strange behaviour.
20:28And these little DNA hits are coming up so they know that the man they're talking to not only had
20:34Libby Squire in his car, but he's been behaving in this sort of predatory sexual way in and around that
20:41area over quite a long period of time.
20:46In the boot of Relevich's car was a bag, a hold-all type bag, and in that hold-all was
20:54effectively, it was a bag of trophies, if you like.
20:57Things like mobile phones and computers.
21:00Things that he'd stolen from young women when he'd been into their houses and kept in this bag in the
21:06boot of his car.
21:07That was a massive breakthrough because that also meant the police could link him to more and more of these
21:14offences.
21:15The picture now that is being built up of Relevich's criminal history and progression of his crimes is now starting
21:25to make police think that Libby has come to some serious harm at the hands of this man.
21:36The police have arrested a prolific sexual criminal, but they lack sufficient evidence to link him with the disappearance of
21:44Libby Squire.
21:47Despite the huge amount of resources police are putting into the search for Libby, they can't find her.
21:53And this is making it difficult to build a case against Relevich.
21:58Libby's body still hadn't been found, but he had been charged with the non-contact sexual offences, and he pleaded
22:07guilty.
22:07He admitted those, so there was no trial.
22:10The upshot is that Pavel Relevich was jailed for five years and eight months for these crimes against 11 different
22:15women.
22:16And it allowed the police to have time to investigate Libby's disappearance and try to get that breakthrough that would
22:22allow them to pin her disappearance on him.
22:34It's been nearly seven weeks since Libby disappeared.
22:39On the 20th of March, a boat was on a fishing trip in the Humber estuary, which goes out into
22:46the North Sea.
22:49The skipper of the boat saw a body in the water and called the lifeguard.
22:53The body was very carefully removed from the water, bearing in mind any potential forensic evidence.
22:59But very quickly, I think, everybody's worst fears were confirmed.
23:05It was a Wednesday, 20th of March. Sam, our liaison officer, rang. So I picked up the phone and I
23:11said,
23:11Oh, hi, Sam. Is everything okay? And she said, Oh, can you talk? And I said, Yes, that's, yeah, yeah,
23:16I can.
23:17And she said, I've just been made aware that a female body has been spotted in the Humber estuary.
23:29She said, Oh, is someone with you? And I said, Yeah, Russell's with me. And she said, Lisa, it's Libby.
23:36And I just, that was really hard.
23:49In the films, you know, people fall down walls and slide on the floor. And I just sat on the
23:55sofa. And I just, it was like my whole world just went like that.
24:02She was identified, um, by dental work and, um, fingerprints. Um, they, I think that she's, because she'd been in
24:10water for so long, um, her fingerprints were quite difficult to take.
24:15I bought her a necklace for her birthday with an L on it for 21st. And she said that she
24:20was face down in the water.
24:23And the L on her necklace was, was showing, you could see the L. And it was almost like her
24:29saying, It's me. I'm here.
24:34I think because, because you are in that limbo, you don't have an idea of what's happening. There's no conclusion.
24:40Um, you know, you prepare for the worst, but even when you get the news, it's, it's, um, rocks your
24:46world a little bit in a way.
24:50When you hear that your friend's been found dead, you, there's, there's no way you can really describe that feeling
24:58apart from numb.
25:00Especially after weeks and weeks and weeks of waiting for an outcome. And that was the outcome.
25:07The important element now is going to be a post-mortem examination for a forensic pathologist to examine Libby's body
25:15to try and ascertain a cause of death and the circumstances around it.
25:19Another serious problem that the police faced was to establish exactly when she had died.
25:24Drowning, um, as any pathologist will, will tell you, is really a, uh, diagnosis of exclusion, because it was in
25:32the water for so long.
25:33It's almost impossible to say whether someone had drowned.
25:36You obviously look for other marks of injury, but the body here was quite decomposed.
25:42It was really a case of there being no clear evidence one way or another as to exactly how or
25:48why she died.
25:50Unfortunately, in this instance, because of the circumstances in which Libby had entered the water, the forensic pathologist was unable
26:00to identify a cause of death.
26:03What also would have been going on at the post-mortem is samples being taken to try and link potentially
26:09a suspect to Libby's death and disappearance.
26:11These would have included things like nail scrapings.
26:15And when we look at the circumstances of Libby's disappearance, the person she was last seen with, Relevich, is a
26:22sexual predator.
26:24So they would have been taking samples to establish whether any sexual offences had taken place.
26:32Swabs were taken from inside Libby's body, and on the high vaginal swab, they recovered semen, and that semen matched
26:39the DNA profile of Pavel Relevich.
26:44This was an extraordinary scientific breakthrough. I mean, she'd been in the water for so long that, I mean, certainly
26:49I had no expectation that the police were going to be able to recover any meaningful DNA.
26:53There was this incontrovertible evidence that he must have had sexual contact with her on the night that she died.
27:00What it allowed the police to do was cast doubt on the story that had been given by Pavel Relevich,
27:04but actually this painted a very different, more sinister picture.
27:12Based on the damning DNA evidence, investigators move in to arrest Relevich.
27:18Police went to the Crown Prosecution Service with this new evidence, and they authorised that Relevich should be charged with
27:25Libby's rape and murder.
27:26On the 24th of October 2019, they arrested and charged Pavel Relevich with Libby's abduction, rape and murder.
27:34So yeah, he was arrested and charged from prison.
27:38We came to, you know, organising the funeral, and I knew it would be a really big affair.
27:44We had the church and I decided to treat it like her wedding day, because she was never going to
27:51get married.
27:52But I could give her everything that I would want to give her in a wedding, I could give her
27:57on her day.
27:59Libby's funeral was a very tough day.
28:03I think there was such a sadness that surrounded it, that it was just so, so difficult.
28:16I think the funeral stands out most in my memory, I remember that the most, which was weird, a very
28:23weird time.
28:25But yeah, I haven't been to many funerals in my life.
28:30So yeah, that was, the funeral I remember very, very well.
28:38I remember having a reserved seat in one of the front rows.
28:44And then, when her body was brought in, in the coffin, it was, it was sort of like, the last,
28:59however many months of my life had just come down to that one moment.
29:05The church was absolutely packed, there was over 400 people there.
29:09And it was really beautiful, and it was a lovely day.
29:12And then we went on to the crematorium and we had a, a more private cremation, I think it was
29:18about 150 people that came to that.
29:21Um, and that was hard. I had to walk away from her.
29:24And I knew that I'd never see her again, or she wasn't going to be on Earth anymore.
29:30And walking away from her was the hardest thing I've ever done.
29:34Really, really hard.
29:36Um, and I, oh, I got a break, I was, I just felt like I'd left half a knee bear.
29:45You know, and, and it was really, really tough.
29:58The trial was booked for June of 2020.
30:03Um, but with COVID and what have you, it was postponed.
30:06Um, and we finally went to trial January the 11th of 2021.
30:10So, she'd actually been dead nearly two years and we went to trial.
30:14So, the trial lasted for four and a half weeks, which must have been very painful for the family because
30:18it was a long time, a long drawn out period where they had to hear in detail about what had
30:23happened to Libby.
30:24And also to hear the lies and deception that were spun by Pavel Relevich as he tried to throw everybody
30:28off the scent.
30:29I took the view that there was sufficient evidence to charge him with rape and with murder.
30:35Given his inconsistent accounts, the recovery of Libby's body and the DNA linking him to her and proving that he'd
30:43had sexual contact with her.
30:48The case was always going to be challenging.
30:50First of all, there was no clear cause of death.
30:55You know, so we hadn't recovered from Libby's body any evidence that she'd been strangled or that she'd been violently
31:01assaulted.
31:02Could we prove that she died by some unlawful act as opposed to she might have run off and fallen
31:09in the river?
31:10She might have deliberately put herself in the river.
31:13There were a number of possibilities that we had to discount.
31:19The CCTV was obviously vital, but it was a circumstantial case built around that CCTV drawing together all these different
31:27strands of evidence to present a compelling picture.
31:32So what we became aware of at the trial was the extent to which Pavel Relevich had been cruising the
31:37streets of Hull looking for another woman to commit sex crimes against on the night of Libby's disappearance.
31:41He'd spent hours driving around and slowing down and looking for women.
31:45He would later claim that he had even been trying to look through windows to see people have sex, but
31:49he'd been unsuccessful.
31:49So you get a full picture of just what a deviant mindset he was.
31:53He was really, really ruthless and he was clearly setting out to find someone to cause really serious harm to.
31:58Well, the challenge of proving how Libby had died was really to bring together all of the circumstantial evidence and
32:09to really make this simple point to the jury.
32:11What are the chances that this girl should end up dead in the water, who had been raped, who had
32:20come into contact with a man who had this history of sexual offending, who had this predatory behaviour?
32:27The idea that she would accidentally die as a result of this contact with Relevich, we thought was fanciful.
32:35He clearly had warped sexual desires that were overwhelming and the idea that that just stopped entirely so he could
32:42have a consensual encounter with a woman on the street seems unlikely.
32:49It was really a question of meticulous preparation and working very closely with the police to develop an electronic presentation
32:57that brought this case to life.
32:59So we plotted all of the CCTV onto plans and we had a system whereby the jury could effectively fly
33:07over the streets in a map view, really walking through the journey that Libby had taken, walking through the journey
33:15that Relevich had taken.
33:16And you could see Libby in that condition, waiting by the bus stop and by chance you got Relevich circling
33:24around and that like the spider and the fly, she came into his web and then she's taken away in
33:31the car.
33:32So it was being able to walk the jury through all of that.
33:37We attended every day and it was really important for me to be there every day.
33:42So I treated the court case right from day one.
33:49I went into it as a fact-finding mission to find out what had happened that night.
33:55I wanted everything laid out in, you know, timeline order and what had happened and that's exactly what we got.
34:03And it really showed how wonderful the police case was.
34:07They were quite incredible.
34:11In spite of the strong case against Relevich, he pleads not guilty and prepares his defence.
34:17His defence was really to run this idea that how do you know that she was killed at all?
34:23You know, the pathology couldn't establish that she had been killed as opposed to have had an accident.
34:30He, through his counsel, explored the idea that Libby had mental health problems,
34:36that maybe she'd taken her own life, that she liked to get extremely drunk on some occasions,
34:42that perhaps she'd fallen in the river, perhaps she'd deliberately put herself in the river.
34:46So really it was rather than running a positive case, it was saying, you know, the prosecution can't close off
34:52all of these avenues.
34:53That was his defence.
34:55So he denied it. He changed his story on the stand.
34:58I think that was the seventh version we had.
35:00The only bit I got really annoyed at was when the defence brought her mental health into it.
35:06You know, because she'd had mental health issues in the past, she'd felt so guilty about having consensual sex with
35:11this person that she'd never met,
35:13which was so out of Libby's character, that she'd thrown herself in the river.
35:19And that was, you know, like, Libby made her own mind up.
35:22If she decided to have sex with a stranger, she would have had sex with a stranger and she would
35:25have owned it.
35:26She wouldn't have thrown herself in the river.
35:30A crucial element to the timeline would have been the amount of time that Relevich was at Oak Road Park
35:37with Libby.
35:39And from the CCTV, the police were able to establish they were there for about seven and a half minutes.
35:45It was about seven and a half minutes from the time Relevich parked the car there with Libby before he
35:51left alone.
35:54Now, on the prosecution case, it would have been seven and a half minutes in which he would have lured
36:00Libby to wherever it was.
36:03He then went on to rape her, murder her and then dispose of her body in a river, which doesn't
36:09give an awful lot of time.
36:13The CCTV revealed that after the first visit to Oak Road, he went back to his home address.
36:20He was inside his house for a reasonably short period of time.
36:24We know from downloading his mobile telephone that he was using online pornography for a period of time.
36:32He then went back out from his home address, back in his car, back to Oak Road playing fields, this
36:39time for about four minutes.
36:40The fact that he later returned there and spent another four minutes added to that, giving an extra window in
36:48which for all of this activity to take place.
36:51He didn't have to have done everything in the same visit.
36:55And that the second visit, in my view, made a really powerful point.
36:59If she had been alive, but he'd raped her, why on earth would he go back?
37:05So the fact that he went straight back told me that he knew he was safe to go back.
37:10In other words, he knew that he'd killed her.
37:13He knew that it was safe to go back and he was going back for a purpose, probably to move
37:17the body.
37:21The CCTV officer was a crucial witness because he helped me to present that case to the jury.
37:28Some of the other key witnesses, the people who'd spoken to Libby before Relevich came into contact with her,
37:34they were crucial to establish that she was in no condition to consent to sex with this man.
37:39So that established the rape.
37:42An important witness for the prosecution was the man who lived near to Oak Road car park.
37:50Him hearing that scream at the time that he could time when Libby and Relevich were there,
37:58it doesn't really add to a consensual encounter.
38:02Libby was screaming, which goes more towards the rape than a consensual encounter.
38:09And it's no coincidence that Libby died very shortly after that encounter.
38:17And then we have the scientific evidence, that was crucial.
38:20The recovery of the swabs, the pathology, and if you look at this case in the round,
38:27this was not a coincidence that she happens to die just after she's met this man.
38:34I would say that throughout the trial, Relevich was completely impassive.
38:42I remember Sam saying, you know, you will want to stare at him, just stare him down.
38:49But all of a sudden you'll get bored with looking at him.
38:52And she was completely right.
38:55I remember when I saw him in court, I just thought, God, you're pathetic.
38:59You know, you are nothing.
39:01You are just so...
39:04There is nothing about him.
39:06He's like completely immaterial.
39:08I think one of the things the jury would have struggled with, they would have convicted him on rape in
39:13fairly short order
39:14because it was pretty clear that that wouldn't have been a consensual encounter.
39:16We don't know how she ended up in the river, we just know that she ended up in the river.
39:19And so she could have ended up in the river from anything from being murdered by Pavel Relevich
39:23to jumping in the water to try and escape him.
39:25And I think that was a problem that the jury would have been stuck on for quite a long time.
39:32Five days the jury had been out, they came into court and they convicted him of rape and they convicted
39:39him of murder.
39:43So when the judge sentenced Pavel Relevich to life with a minimum of 27 years for the rape and murder
39:48of Libby Squire,
39:48he told him he was a very dangerous individual and he was confident that if he hadn't been stopped,
39:52he would have gone on to commit further offences.
39:55When the verdict came in, I felt really happy for the police because they had worked so hard
39:59and they had, I mean, they'd been invested in this for two years by that point
40:03and I was really pleased for them.
40:07Libby didn't come back, um, but she had got some justice
40:13and more importantly, she had paid the ultimate price, but she had got a really dangerous man off the streets
40:20and because of her, the streets of Hull were safer.
40:23So, in a way, it was almost a bit of recognition for what she'd done.
40:29That's how I saw it, um, at the time.
40:33Relevich has been convicted of rape and murder.
40:37But some questions in the case may forever go unanswered.
40:41I got some of the answers I wanted. Um, one of the biggest things I needed to know was, I
40:47wanted to know when she got in the car, was she cold or was she tired?
40:51You know, was she chatty? Was she not chatty? Was she crying?
40:54I discovered actually not until the court case that she would have been suffering with the early stages of hypothermia.
41:00So, that comforted me because she really wouldn't have known what was going on.
41:04Um, but the main thing I wanted to know was how she died and I, that keeps me awake at
41:09night time still.
41:10Um, so yeah, I got some answers, but, some answers, some questions were answered, but then gave me more questions.
41:16But I think that's the whole nature of child loss or losing a loved one.
41:20This was one of the more disturbing cases I've ever worked on.
41:23Just due to the cruelty with which Libby was snatched away from a family who loved her and also the
41:28long wait that they had to endure to find out what happened to her.
41:33I think I really did struggle for quite a long time actually.
41:37Um, I'd gone on some medication at the time. I was, um, going out a bit more and drinking a
41:44bit more.
41:44But the fact of the matter is I can wake up every morning, um, and go about my day and
41:48that was taken away from Libby.
41:50So I think it's just given me the, the push to think, you know, appreciate the things that I have
41:54and appreciate the things that are here.
41:55Love my friends, love my family. Um, and yeah, just don't take anyone for granted, basically.
42:05I don't think I have managed my grief over the years.
42:08It's weird because I think of her every day, every single day.
42:11Um, but when I think about actually what has happened, it doesn't hit me until I really, really think about
42:19it.
42:19Because it's still like, I still, I still don't believe that happened to her.
42:23I know she's gone here.
42:26Like, I can't physically see her.
42:28But it still is crazy to me that, how she passed.
42:37So yeah, that's what's hard.
42:41I'd never met anyone like her before I'd met her.
42:45So I think in terms of that, she completely left her an impact as well.
42:52So easy to, to get on with.
42:55And it's sort of one of those friendships where you just want to be a little bit more like Libby.
42:59Um, so I sort of strive to, to take a little piece with me everywhere I go.
43:06And yeah, I just loved the way that she got happiness from other people.
43:15Libby's mum, Lisa, now educates young people in the hope that what happened to her daughter doesn't happen to someone
43:22else.
43:23Everything I do now is based on learning.
43:25So, you know, going in and talking to, you know, I've talked, I've, I've talked to thousands of children.
43:31Just sort of making them aware that, you know, things can happen.
43:35In that time, Libby's alive again.
43:37You know, we can learn from what happened to Libby.
43:39Um, and it's all her.
43:43I'm just her voice now.
43:44And it, it gives me an immense amount of pride in her.
43:48Because she is, she is still helping people.
43:56Libby always put other people first.
43:58She always was helpful.
44:00She was a kind, generous person.
44:02She's doing that from the other side by doing this.
44:05She's saving women.
44:07So, yeah, I'm incredibly proud of her.
44:19And I'm really proud of her.
44:24I'm not.
44:25I'm a thoughtful reader.
44:38You're a moment with me
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