'Life should mean life': Libby Squire's mother gives take on Pitchfork release
8 June 2021, 11:53
'How do you live knowing someone has done that to your child?'
Mother of murdered student Libby Squire says a 'life sentence should be for life', after the Parole Board ruled double-murderer Colin Pitchfork can be released after 33 years.
Tom began by saying: "I cannot imagine the horror, the panic, of being told that my child was missing"
Libby's mother Lisa Squire replied: "Yes, it was horrendous. I've always said it's like when you're in a supermarket and you lose your child for two seconds and you know how your stomach drops? But it never comes back up.
"And we live with that daily - myself, my husband, my other three children. It's like a bomb's gone off in the middle of our life, and we just have to circumnavigate that somehow. How do you live knowing someone did that to your child? But you don't actually have a choice, you just have to get on with it."
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Tom asked what Lisa felt like when she saw Pawel Relowicz in court who raped and murdered Libby.
Lisa said: "From the day they arrested someone in connection with her murder, I made the decision not to think about him at all, because to me, if I'm spending time thinking about him that's taking away time that I want to be thinking about Libby and present with Libby. I don't think about him at all, he is absolutely nothing to me.
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Tom then asked: "Do you think people can change sufficiently?"
Lisa replied: "No, I don't think so. He was 24 when he killed Libby, and we had a lot of CCTV in the courtroom, and after he had killed Libby he went home and had a bath. He then got back in his car and was cruising the student areas for another girl. So had he found another girl that night, there would've been a second murder, I have no doubt about that.
"We were told he wouldn't get an indeterminate life sentence because he'd only raped and murdered one person. But one person is too many. I think anyone who rapes and murders should be sent to prison for life.
"A life sentence should mean a life sentence - because it is for the families."
The decision to release Colin Pitchfork is provisional for 21 days, subject to the approval of the Justice Secretary who has the power to appeal against the decision.
