Man Prowled The Streets Looking For A Victim Before Raping, Murdering Student

A man, on trial for the rape and murder of a student in the U.K., was allegedly looking for a victim before he intercepted the "extremely vulnerable" woman, a court has heard.

Polish butcher Pawel Relowicz, who was "prowling the streets" before he met Libby Squire, had committed a string of "sexually motivated" burglaries in the months leading up to the latter's death, prosecutors told Sheffield Crown Court, BBC News reported.

Jurors were also informed about how Relowicz kept "trophies," which included underwear and sex toys, stolen from other women.

On Feb. 1, 2019, Squire, a Hull University philosophy student, was refused entry to The Welly nightclub as she appeared drunk, Yahoo News reported. Though her friends put her in a taxi home, Squire walked away from her front door and met Relowicz.

The prosecution said she was drunk, hypothermic on a freezing night and in deep distress after losing her house keys. Relowicz then drove Squire to the Oak Road playing fields where he raped her before disposing of her body in the River Hull. Her remains were found in the Humber Estuary almost seven weeks later.

Prosecutor Richard Wright said: "Her screams and scratches make it evident she was raped by a man whose entire motivation for coming into contact with her that night was to take her away from safety to a remote area well known to him and to subject her to his uncontrollable sexual urges. His very purpose in prowling the streets was to commit opportunistic sexual offenses and the rape of Libby was just such an offense," Yahoo News reported.

Wright said Relowicz claimed Squire had instigated consensual sexual intercourse, and he had left her "safe and well" on the fields.

However, Sam Alford, who lives nearby, reported hearing a woman's desperate screams coming from the direction of the river, the court heard.

Relowicz, who has a wife and two children in Hull, had pleaded guilty to nine sexually-motivated offenses in the months before Squire died.

Jurors were also shown CCTV visuals of the defendant stalking Squire before he "intercepts" her. The last sighting of Squire showed Relowicz performing a sex act in the middle of a street.

A DNA profile from the condom retrieved at the scene yielded a match to the defendant, the court heard. Pawel Relowicz, 26, denies the charges as the trial continues.