29 February 2024 , 10:34
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Sarah Everard’s killer Wayne Couzens should never have been given a job as a police officer and chances to stop the sexual predator were repeatedly ignored and missed, an inquiry has found.
The former armed Metropolitan police officer was found to have been involved in eight separate incidents of indecent exposure – all of which were reported to police – before he went on to murder. Evil Couzens will never be released from prison after he abducted, raped and murdered marketing executive Miss Everard, 33, in March 2021. A report on the first part of a Home Office-commissioned inquiry into his policing career by Dame Elish Angiolini has been published today.
His crimes were “the culmination of a trajectory of sexually motivated behaviour and offending”, including indecent exposure, the sexual assault on a child, sexual touching and sharing unsolicited photos of his genitals, the report found. It said that there were also allegations that he possessed indecent images of children.
Miss Everard's family said they believed she died because Couzens was a police officer, adding: “She would never have got into a stranger’s car” as they welcomed the inquiry’s findings.
The 51-year-old used his status as a police officer to trick Miss Everard into thinking he could arrest her for breaking lockdown rules in place at the time. After the harrowing killing, it emerged there had been concerns about Couzens' behaviour while he was a police officer, with reports he was nicknamed "the rapist".
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He joined Kent Police as a special constable in 2002, became an officer with the Civil Nuclear constabulary in 2011 and then moved to the Met in 2018. Couzens indecently exposed himself three times before the murder, including twice at a drive-through fast food restaurant in Kent in the days before the killing.
Sarah Everard was kidnapped and murdered in March 2021 (PA)He was not caught despite driving his own car and using his own credit card at the time. Then-Metropolitan Police constable Samantha Lee was sacked and barred from being a police officer after it was found she had not properly investigated the incidents.
Couzens was also later revealed to have been part of a WhatsApp group with fellow officers that shared disturbing racist, homophobic and misogynist remarks. Wayne Couzens served in three police forces before he murdered Sarah Everard and was sentenced to die in prison.
Concerns were raised about his behaviour at various points before the killing, including when he exposed himself to women and his demeanour at work, with claims that he was nicknamed "the rapist". Lady Elish Angiolini, who led the inquiry into his career across three forces, found that without major changes there is nothing in place to stop another monster like Couzens going undetected.
Lady Elish said: “Failures of investigations, failures of recruitment processes, and failures of vetting policy and practice are a depressingly familiar refrain in policing. Now is the time for change and I have made 16 recommendations to bring about the necessary changes.
Police divers searching near Rope Walk in Sandwich, Kent, in March 2021 (PA)“Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer. And, without a significant overhaul, there is nothing to stop another Wayne Couzens operating in plain sight.”
The report found that Couzens’ history of alleged sexual offending and preference for extreme violent pornography dated back nearly 20 years before Miss Everard’s murder. He is accused of having sexually assaulted a child “barely in her teens” while in his early 20s, and the inquiry identified four more victims who had not reported sexual crimes to the police, and it is feared there may be more.
While the inquiry did not make a conclusive finding that Miss Everard’s murder could have been prevented, it found that Wayne Couzens could have been sacked if vetting and investigations into indecent exposure reports had been more thorough.
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Police investigations into alleged indecent exposure in 2015 and 2021, in the days before the murder, were “of poor quality and inadequate”, and “seemed destined to fail from the start”.
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“Rather than embarking on a process of detailed, thorough and time-consuming evidence-gathering, the officers displayed apathy and disinterest and found reasons not to pursue the cases”, the report said.
There were also failures in vetting, with Wayne Couzens hiding the level of debt that he was in and exaggerating the amount of time he spent in the Territorial Army.
Couzens, who became a special constable for Kent Police in 2002, failed vetting to become a regular officer in 2008, but was allowed to remain as a special with all the same powers as a regular constable and was permitted to work alone.
When he joined the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, an outside force – Thames Valley Police – carried out vetting and found that he should not be recruited, in line with rules around officers with heavy personal debts, but this was ignored.
Couzens joined the Met in 2018 (Kent Messenger / SWNS)In 2018, when he joined the Metropolitan Police, a search of the Police National Database, an intelligence database, found “no trace”. In fact there were entries about an incident in 2013 when he was reported missing from home, and an allegation of indecent exposure from 2015.
These were also missed when he applied to be a firearms officer the following year. The Met told the inquiry that it would still have recruited Couzens even if this information had been available, which the report said was “of serious concern”.
While he carefully controlled how he was seen by colleagues, Couzens spent his working life in environments dominated by men that did nothing to discourage his warped beliefs, the inquiry found.
“Although Wayne Couzens was not wholly a product of his working environments, those environments did nothing to discourage his misogynistic view of women and meant that providing he presented himself as professional his deviant behaviour outside work could flourish,” the report said.
Sarah Everard’s parents and siblings Sue, Jeremy, Katie and James, said in a statement: “As a family, the inquiry has helped us, not just because of its significant findings, but because its implementation made us feel that Sarah’s life was valued and her memory honoured.
“Her death has not been dismissed as a tragic event to be acknowledged with sympathy and then forgotten – questions have been raised and actions taken to investigate how this tragedy happened. As a family, we have not had to fight for answers and, for this, we are very thankful.
“It is obvious that Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer. Whilst holding a position of trust, in reality he was a serial sex offender. Warning signs were overlooked throughout his career and opportunities to confront him were missed. We believe that Sarah died because he was a police officer, she would never have got into a stranger’s car.”
Their statement continued: “It is almost three years now since Sarah died. We no longer wait for her call; we no longer expect to see her. We know she won’t be there at family gatherings. But the desperate longing to have her with us remains and the loss of Sarah pervades every part of our lives.”
Meanwhile, Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley apologised to Miss Everard's family. He said: "There is nothing we can say to the family of Sarah Everard and all those who loved her that will convey how very sorry we are.
“Wayne Couzens’ crimes were horrific. The fact that he abused his position as a Metropolitan Police officer to carry them out represents the most appalling betrayal of trust. It damages the relationship between the public and the police and exposes long-standing fundamental flaws in the way we decide who is fit to be a police officer and the way we pursue those who corrupt our integrity once they get in.
“The report published today is an urgent call to action for all of us in policing. We must go further and faster, to earn back the trust of all those whose confidence in policing has been shaken by events of recent years. Regardless of our significant progress over the past year, the scale of the change that is needed inevitably means it will take time and it is not yet complete. The majority of my Met colleagues share my determination to reform by both confronting the risk posed by predatory men in policing, and also, improving our protection of women and children across London.”
Here is a timeline of events concerning the former police officer
- 2002: Couzens joins the Kent Special Constabulary.
- 2015: Kent Police allegedly fail to investigate an indecent exposure incident linked to Couzens.
- September 2018: Couzens transfers to the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) where he had worked since 2011.
- 2019: Couzens and his wife buy a small area of woodland off Fridd Lane in Ashford, Kent.
- February 2019: The Pc joins a response team covering the Bromley area of south London, having initially served in a Safer Neighbourhood Team.
- February 2020: He moves to the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command to patrol diplomatic premises, mainly embassies.
- November 13 2020: He steps out of a woodland area in Deal, Kent, naked and masturbates as a woman cycles past.
- February 14 and 27 2021: Couzens exposes himself to two female staff members at a drive-through fast food restaurant in Kent. He used his own credit card to pay and was driving his own car.
- February 28 2021: Couzens books a white Vauxhall Astra from a car hire firm in Dover, Kent, using his personal details and bank card.
- March 2 2021: 7pm: Couzens starts a 12-hour shift at his base in West Brompton, west London.
- March 3 2021: Then-Met Pc Samantha Lee goes to the fast food restaurant but does not trace Couzens' car, despite the restaurant manager claiming his registration number is visible in CCTV footage. She is later sacked and barred from working as a police officer.
Later that evening Couzens uses his status as a police officer to trick Miss Everard into thinking she can be arrested for breaking lockdown rules in place at the time. After murdering her, Couzens hides her body in woodland near Ashford in Kent.
- March 9 2021: Couzen's phone is wiped of all data about 40 minutes before he is arrested on suspicion of murder. In a brief interview, he tells a false story about being threatened by an Eastern European gang.
- July 9 2021: Couzens pleads guilty to murder when he appears at the Old Bailey by video link from Belmarsh high security jail.
- September 30 2021: Couzens receives a whole life order when he is sentenced, with Lord Justice Fulford justifying the punishment because the murderer's use of his position as a police officer to detain Ms Everard was the "vital factor".
- October 2021: Couzens applies for leave to appeal against his sentence.
- November 2021: The Home Office establishes an independent inquiry led by Dame Elish Angiolini to look at Ms Everard's murder, with the first part focusing on Couzens and whether any potential risks or red flags were missed during his time in the police.
- March 2022: Couzens is charged with four counts of indecent exposure over alleged incidents in January and February 2021.
- July 2022: The Court of Appeal rejects his appeal against his sentence.
- February 13 2023: Couzens pleads guilty to three counts of indecent exposure in Kent between November 2020 and February 2021.
- March 6 2023: He is sentenced to 19 months for the offences, although he is already serving a whole life jail term for Miss Everard's murder and will never be released.
- March 21 2023: The Casey Review, commissioned by the Met in the wake of Miss Everard's murder, finds that the force is institutionally racist, homophobic and misogynist, and that there may be more officers like Couzens and rapist David Carrick in its ranks.
- May 2023: Watchdog the Independent Office for Police Conduct calls for a national system to ensure all forces are told about criminal allegations made against serving officers, in light of the indecent exposure accusations against Couzens.
- February 29 2024: A report on the first part of the Angiolini Inquiry, looking at incidents during his career and whether red flags were missed, is published.