Libby Squire’s bruised body found with ‘squeeze marks on her neck’ as CCTV shows suspect ‘go to McDonalds after murder’
LIBBY Squire's bruised body was found with "squeeze marks" on her neck, a court heard today.
And CCTV has shown her suspected killer, Pawel Relowicz, 26 "going to McDonald's" after the murder of the 21-year-old student.
Libby was allegedly driven to a remote playing field by the butcher, where she was raped, murdered then dumped in a river.
The Polish-born father of-two, from Hull, denies murdering and raping philosophy student Libby, who went missing following a night out in February 2019.
She was discovered six weeks later on March 20 in the Humber estuary by a fishing boat - a gold necklace bearing the letter 'L' still hanging around her neck.
Today Dr Matthew Lyall, Home Office pathologist gave evidence from a remote site.
Dr Lyall conducted a post-mortem examination on Libby’s body on March 21, 2019 at Hull Royal Infirmary.
He told the court that Libby's bruised body had been found with "neck marks."
He said he has found evidence of small hemorrhages around her mouth which could be evidence of asphyxia.
He explained the hemorrhages could represent squeezing or compression of the neck or covering of the mouth.
He said: “It’s not conclusive but is something we look out for.
"It is like a little bruise but you tend to see lots of them at once around the lips or the eyes."
“They are a useful marker of it.”
Dr Lyall also noticed that there was possible bruising on the right upper arm, close to the chest.
He said: “It could represent gripping but I couldn’t say it was a genuine bruise.”
MCDONALD'S 'VISIT'
It was also revealed that police believe a car caught on CCTV at a nearby McDonald’s belongs to Relowicz.
The suspect vistied the fast food gaint before and after Libby’s disapperance.
Detective Constable James Grandidge, the police officer tasked with recovering and analysing the CCTV footage for the case, said Relowicz, 26, had first been picked up on CCTV at the McDonald’s restaurant in Cottingham Road at 9.45pm on January 30.
The clip from McDonald’s, taken the day before Libby’s disappearance, showed Relowicz arriving and leaving the fast food outlet.
Relowicz was spotted on camera again on February 3.
'DESPERATE' SCREAMS
And earlier today the court heard a resident heard “desperate” screams for seven minutes the night tragic Libby Squire vanished, a court heard today.
Sam 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”.
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”.
Libby's last movements
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: “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.
Ms Squire - who was a student at the University of Hull but originally from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire - had been refused entry to a nightclub because she was drunk, and had been given offers of help by people on the night she went missing.
CCTV footage shows the tragic moment Libby walked away from her front door.
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.
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Relowicz is said to have identified Libby as a "target", and later "darted" across the road to "intercept her", Sheffield Crown Court heard.
The trial continues.