Libby Squire: Murderer Pawel Relowicz's sentence 'not unduly lenient'

Pawel Relowicz was sentenced for the rape and murder of Libby Squire on 12 February

A request to increase a serial sex offender's 27-year jail sentence for the rape and murder of Libby Squire has been rejected.

Pawel Relowicz was convicted last month of the fatal attack on the 21-year-old Hull University Student.

His prison term had been referred to the Attorney General's Office (AGO) for consideration under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme.

A spokesperson said the "high threshold" for a review was not met.

If the referral had been successful Relowicz's jail term would have been examined by the Court of Appeal, possibly leading to a longer sentence.

During a 14-day trial at Sheffield Crown Court, prosecutors said the 26-year-old butcher had spent the night of 31 January 2019 driving around looking for a woman to attack.

Ms Squire was studying philosophy at the University of Hull

After spotting "vulnerable" Ms Squire, he drove her to a nearby park and raped her before dumping her body in the River Hull.

Nearly seven weeks later, the body of Ms Squire, of High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, was recovered from the Humber Estuary.

The AGO spokesperson said the solicitor general was "shocked" by the case and offered her "profound sympathy" to Ms Squire's family.

"A referral under the scheme can only be made if a sentence is not just lenient but unduly so, such that the sentencing judge made a gross error or imposed a sentence outside the range of sentences reasonably available in the circumstances of the offence," the spokesperson added.

"The threshold is a high one, and the test was not met in this case."

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Before his conviction for the University of Hull student's murder, Relowicz was jailed for a string of sexually motivated offences, including performing sex acts in public and stealing underwear from women's homes.