05 March 2024 , 14:51
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New footage has shown the moment killer Wayne Couzens moans "I'm not in a good place" during a police interview after murdering Sarah Everard.
As is standard practice during these interviews, officers ask him how he is feeling to which he replies: "I'm in a dark place." The disturbing footage has been shown for the first time in the BBC documentary Sarah Everard: The Search for Justice. The murder in March 2021 shocked the country, angered many women and raised questions about how police harboured a murderer in their ranks.
Couzens, who was a member of London’s Metropolitan Police at the time, later pleaded guilty to Everard’s murder and was sentenced to life in prison.
During his police interview in the documentary, Couzens writhes in his seat with a plaster on his head as he is shown a picture of Sarah to see if he recognises her. He shuts his eyes and replies "no comment" before remaining emotionless. Couzens continues to refuse to answer after officers ask if he used his warrant card to lure Sarah into his car. One cop then asks: "Is that how she trusted you? Because obviously as a police officer, we know we are in a position… People trust us, don't they?"
Wayne Couzens seen in the BBC documentary (BBC)Everard, who disappeared while walking home from visiting a friend in south London, was found dead a week later in woodland about 60 miles south of London. Couzens had used his police identification to stop her on the pretext that she was violating COVID-19 lockdown rules. Everard’s family said in response that they believe she died because Couzens was a police officer, adding: "She would never have got into a stranger’s car."
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Detective Chief Inspector Katherine Goodwin, who led the investigation, revealed the horrifying moment she discovered Couzens was a serving police officer. A police computer had identified he was suspected of being a flasher, before triggering an alert that he was a gun cop. She said: "At that time, Wayne Couzens was a name that meant nothing to any of us. I can just remember the shock of having to just sit on the floor of the office and say to her, ‘You’re not going to believe this, that he’s a police officer’."
Undated family handout photo of Sarah Everard (PA)According to the damning report, Couzens had a history of viewing extreme and violent pornography and alleged sexual offending dating back nearly two decades before the murder of Everard. Couzens, 51, often shared his interests with other officers on a WhatsApp group. The inquiry’s chair, Elish Angiolini, warned that there’s "nothing to stop another Couzens operating in plain sight" unless there’s a radical overhaul of policing practices and culture.
Three different police forces — Kent Police, the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and the Metropolitan Police — "could and should" have stopped Couzens from getting a job as an officer, Angiolini said. She identified a catalogue of failings in his recruitment and vetting, and how allegations against him were investigated.
Today, the UK's most senior police officer has said combatting violence against women and girls will need the same level of funding as the fights against terrorism or organised crime. Sir Mark Rowley told the London Policing Board that hundreds of thousands of men in Britain are a threat to women and girls and the scale of the problem means it has to be treated as a threat to national security.
Sir Mark faced questioning by the board in the wake of the first part of the Angiolini Inquiry published last week, which found that Couzens was a serial sexual predator who should never have been employed by the police service. Couzens was able to work for three different forces despite a 20-year history of sexual depravity and spiralling debts, which should have stopped him from being a police officer. Instead, he abused his powers to kidnap and then rape and murder marketing executive Everard.