The mum of a murdered student has told Nicola Bulley's family "please don’t give up hope”. Libby Squire, a 21-year-old student, went missing in Hull almost four years to the day that Nicola, 45, disappeared.
Her mum, Lisa Squire, said the case has brought back her own heartbreaking memories. It was seven agonising weeks before Libby was found in the Humber Estuary off Cleethorpes, almost 20 miles from where her dead or dying body had been pushed into the River Hull by killer Pawel Relowicz, 24.
Nicola has been missing for almost three weeks and although there is no evidence to suggest foul play, Lisa knows the agony that Nicola’s partner and family will be going through and has sent a touching message to the family.
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Speaking to HullLive, Lisa said: "Do what you’re doing. Put one foot in front of the other and hope for that positive outcome.
"I know how it feels to have that hope every day, to wake up in the morning and think ‘today she’ll come home’, then get to the night-time and think ‘tomorrow, it will be tomorrow’.
"It’s so draining but keep hope that Nicola will be found."
Lisa has watched on TV as divers spent days searching the River Wyre for Nicola with barely any clues about what had happened to her. It was a chilling reminder of similar scenes on the River Hull in the days after Libby went missing on February 1, 2019.
"When I saw the little police dinghy on the river looking for Nicola it took me right back to when we were searching for Libby and how desperate it all was," Lisa said.
"I hope for Nicola’s family’s sake that she will come back alive with an explanation. But I remember the police saying to us we would have to consider Libby had come to harm as the days went on. It’s the not knowing that’s so difficult."
Lisa, 52, said she began to give up hope as time passed with no sign of Libby and had a growing sense despair which she said would only pass when she finally knew of her fate.
"For me, I always somehow knew that Libby would come back but I needed it to happen," she said. "I don’t know how I would have functioned had she not been found. What happened to Libby was almost secondary because I just had to get her back."
Libby’s body was finally recovered in late March after being spotted in the Humber by a crewman on a passing ship. Her body was recovered by an RNLI crew. She had travelled almost 20 miles from the Oak Road playing fields into the Humber Estuary to as far as Cleethorpes.
Lisa said: "The relief I felt when the police called me to say she’d been found was something else. In that moment I was elated that she had been found, but straight away I thought ‘that means she’s dead’.
"Having her back was the thing I’d been waiting for, but her death had become a reality. The experts told us Libby was in the Estuary within a few hours because the river was flowing five miles an hour that night.
"At the time I thought surely somebody would have seen her but the cruel reality is that bodies sink. I often think about that journey - what did Libby see along the way, did her body get caught on something for a while, how did she move, did she float under the water?"
Lisa says with Nicola's fate still a mystery, she had watched Nicola’s partner Paul Ansell's Channel 5 interview with Dan Walker on TV and understood his pain as he tries to conceal the horror of the events from their two young daughters.
She added: "I remember when Libby disappeared how shocked I felt. I was just thinking ‘this couldn’t really be happening to us’.
"I felt like I was watching it all unfold, almost like an out-of-body experience. Nicola’s partner is obviously trying to keep his girls in a normal routine and I did a lot of that too, just trying to carry on as normal as possible.
"It sounds callous but life has to carry on, in our case it was for Libby’s two sisters and brothers and they still needed to have their clothes ironed and arrive at school on time. You can see in his eyes that he’s stunned.
"He’s calm, but what choice does he have? He can’t be screaming and crying and ranting and raving. It’s not a Netflix documentary.
"With children you don’t have a chance to sit down and cry and that’s what keeps you calm. His children will be looking to him for all the answers, they will need him more than ever."
The maternity nurse also slammed cruel trolls who have speculated about what may have happened and even commented on Nicola’s personal Facebook account.
She said: "Nicola is someone’s daughter, someone’s partner and the mother of two young girls yet, I know with Libby, it’s like suddenly she’s everyone’s property. Everyone has an opinion on what happened.
"On one hand you’re grateful to people for wanting to help, but it’s a double-edged sword because in Libby’s case I just wanted to say ‘leave her alone’. I felt so protective."
While the search continues for Nicola, there has been some closure for Lisa in the case of Libby. Polish butcher Relowicz, of Raglan Street, Newland Avenue, was convicted in 2021 of her murder and rape.
He had a history of twisted sex crimes and had targeted Libby after seeing her distressed and intoxicated in the street late that evening.
For Nicola's family, her fate remains agonisingly unclear. Lancashire Police say they continue to be 'confident' she somehow fell into the River Wyre.
Lisa, who now campaigns for tougher policing on "minor" sex crimes, said she hopes that, for all her own agony, Nicola will be found alive and well.
She said: "We can only hope that Nicola will turn up. At the moment the family’s lives must feel wretched. I’ve been through it and had the worst. I hold on to something someone told me after we lost Libby; there’s little light in this life right now, but eventually you will see a rainbow, the colours will just be slightly different."
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