Lisa Squire to push for tougher punishments for 'low-level' sexual offenders at Home Office visit
She will be bringing her campaign to the Home Secretary today
The mum of murdered Hull student Libby Squire, from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, is today bringing her campaign calling on harsher punishments for 'non-contact' sexual offences to the Home Secretary.
Libby Squire was raped and murdered in 2019 after being separated from her friends on a night out in Hull.
Her killer, Pawel Relowicz had already spent months committing non-contact sexual offences, which came to light following Libby's disappearance, when several women came forward to report crimes.
Lisa has been working for years to better bring justice to both to victims and their families.
In what she now labels 'Libby's Legacy', she is pushing for tougher sentences for offenders committing the highest level of sexual crimes, unified sentences which would see all offences of the same nature punished the same way, and harsher punishment for 'non-contact' sexual offences.
Speaking to Greatest Hits Radio, she said: "Obviously Libby's point in case, and that of Sarah Everard, they're two that spring to mind immediately."
"I would also like to discuss why the sentencing in sex crimes are so different, I said so many times before Sarah Everard's case and Libby's case are identical yet one has got a whole life tariff and one hasn't."
While offenders eventually get released from prison and are given a second chance at life, Lisa told us victims and their families are not.
She said: "As the victim you have a whole life sentence, you don't go to bed and forget about it."
"We seem to be very perpetrator focused in this country and we need to change that, we need to be victim focused and the only way to keep women safe is to have men who commit the ultimate act, rape and or murder, kept behind bars."
In many cases, like Lisa's daughter Libby's, the perpetrator initiated criminal behaviour through 'non-contact' sexual offences, leading him to commit the most serious and violent sexual crime, and ultimate crime.
While she told us more should be done on the punishment side of these crimes, she suggested putting measures in place to prevent potential offenders from committing crimes.
She said: "I think we have to put help in place to hopefully stop escalation, we're very reactive rather than proactive."
"There doesn't seem to be an awful lot of help for perpetrators, or men who have these urges, so that's a really fundamental stage of it."
"So if we can help people before they get to the stage of terrorising women walking home on their own, we're going to save lives."
Through her campaign and her meeting with the Home Secretary, Lisa is hoping to bring some of her ideas to the table and ultimately develop those into laws.