The heartbroken mum of murdered student Libby Squire is demanding mandatory five-year jail terms for indecent exposure to protect other women being killed.
Lisa Squire, whose 21-year-old daughter was murdered by a prolific sex offender, is pleading with ministers to take on board the lessons of Libby’s death so her daughter’s memory can be ‘honoured’. She said she wants Libby’s story to be on every school agenda, to make her death “mean something”.
Speaking to the Mirror six months after Labour came to power promising to tackle the “national emergency” of violence against women and girls, Lisa said: “If they’re brazen enough to commit a no contact offence, they will go on to contact offences.
“So my thinking is we can give them the treatment in the early stages and unpick their thinking, we’re going to save women’s lives. At the moment they don’t even go to Crown Court, they just get a slap on the wrist in reality. I think it should be a minimum five years”.
Libby’s killer Pawel Relowicz, who was later convicted of rape and murder, had a long history of indecent exposure. Lisa, 54 says her daughter’s death could have been prevented if tougher action was taken against her killer at an earlier stage.
At the moment, she believes, crimes like indecent exposure and voyeurism are not taken seriously enough, despite growing evidence that those who commit them go on to carry out physical sex crimes.
The Government is carrying out a review into the way non-contact sex offences are dealt with by police and the courts. And Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips told The Mirror she will do “whatever I have to” to prevent it happening again.
A review is being done to determine how many such predators go on to commit physical attacks. It follows the murder of Libby in 2019 and Sarah Everard in 2021 by police officer Wayne Couzens. Like Relowicz, Couzens had previously exposed himself in public before he raped and murdered Sarah after kidnapping her as she walked home in South London.
Ms Phillips said in both cases their previous crimes should have been taken more seriously. Lisa said: “I can make her death mean something, make her death make a change.
“I can be her voice, because I know 100% in my heart that if it had been me or one of her sisters that had been murdered Libby would have been doing 100 times more than I’m doing. This is my way of parenting her, this is my way of honouring her.”
Libby’s killer preyed on her when she disappeared after a night out in Hull, where she was a student. Her body was not found for another seven weeks. If it had not been Libby, Lisa believes, another girl would have suffered her fate – something that brings her comfort.
“I’ve always been proud of all of my children, but it made me even prouder of her,” she said. “You’ve taken this really dangerous man off the streets. She’s paid the ultimate price but how many women has she saved?”
Soon after Relowicz was arrested, Lisa was told he had a history of committing sexual offences. He later pleaded guilty to nine unrelated sexual offences including voyeurism and outraging public decency. “It was a very distressing piece of information to process, but actually when I did process it, it made sense,” Lisa said.
Ministers are currently drawing up a Crime and Policing Bill, expected in the spring. Lisa, who said she welcomes the Government’s new focus, said this should include tougher measures to stop non-contact sex offenders before they progress to physical sex attacks.
Last year Dame Diana Johnson, now the Policing Minister, told MPs that in five years almost 250 men found guilty of indecent exposure were subsequently been found guilty of rape. She told the Commons: “Indecent exposure and non-contact sexual offences are gateway crimes that are still not taken seriously enough.”
Since Libby’s death, Lisa has campaigned to raise awareness of non-contact sex crimes, and encourage people to report them. She said: “In the short time that she’s been gone, the change is massive because so many people are more aware of non-contact offences.
“It was almost accepted, as women we were expected to accept it. If you went to a police officer you would report it and they would say ‘are you ok?’ If you said yes it would almost be, ‘well what are you complaining about?’
“There wasn’t that automatic link that if a man is prepared to do that to a stranger he may be prepared to go on and do more harmful things. I think it was almost saying it’s harmless.”
Lisa warned that if Relowicz is ever freed, he will kill again. “You can’t rehabilitate somebody who thinks that way. If you take a life, you should spend the rest of your life in prison,” she said.
In recent months Lisa has been working with Thames Valley Police on a new education campaign, It Does Matter. This encourages victims to report non-contact sex crimes, with research suggesting 95% of cases go unreported.
She said: “If even 50% reported, how many men, if they were apprehended, could we stop going on and committing a rape? I want Libby’s Lesson to be on every school agenda. We can save people.
“When I’m talking at events or talking to police or what have you about her and about what happened to her, she comes back to life for an hour or so. I had 21 years and one month with her, and even knowing the outcome I would do it again in a heartbeat.
“It’s tough without her, she was such a big presence. As a family we’re now at the point where we can talk about how she lived rather than how she died which is a massive step forwards. It’s really hard, I still don’t believe she’s gone.”
Lisa said that while she is apolitical, she is encouraged by the new Government’s drive to tackle violence against women and girls. Ministers have made the ambitious pledge to halve this within a decade.
Lisa, who has met with Dame Diana and Ms Phillips, said: “I do think this government is taking sex offences more seriously. It’s something that was gathering momentum before the General Election, but I’m optimistic. It’s a massive commitment but it can be done. They’re very brave people to undertake it, but I think they really believe in it.”
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Ms Phillips told The Mirror that the Government is committed to bringing in the recommendations of the Angiolini Inquiry, which was ordered following Ms Everard’s murder. In her findings, published last year, Lady Elish Angiolini raised serious concerns about the way non-contact sex crimes were viewed by police. She ordered every force to bring in a specialist policy to deal with these crimes.
Ms Phillips said: “The Home Office have absolutely committed to all of the recommendations of the Angiolini review part one, there is a second part to come. And one of the things that we are absolutely looking at is the escalation of non-contact sexual offences into worse, more violent, behaviour.”
She continued: “What I would say is that the fundamentals in both the Libby Squire case and the Sarah Everard case is that they should have been taken more seriously. Those crimes should have been taken more seriously.
“I will do whatever I absolutely have to. What I am saying is that writing words on goatskin isn’t always the solution. How we deal with policing standards, policing expectations around violence against women and girls is, if anything, way more important to me.”
