New images of Sarah Everard, 33, have been released as part of a new BBC documentary
By Andre Rhoden-Paul
BBC News
The detective who led the Sarah Everard murder inquiry has told the BBC about the moment she found out killer Wayne Couzens was a police officer.
Ms Everard, 33, was abducted, raped and murdered by serving Metropolitan Police officer Couzens as she walked home in London in 2021.
Det Ch Insp Katherine Goodwin tells of the “shock” of telling her boss “you’re not going to believe this”.
She made the comments in a new BBC documentary that will air on Tuesday.
It is being shown days after the third anniversary of Ms Everard’s death.
Watch: DCI Katherine Goodwin recalls finding out that Wayne Couzens is a police officer
The detective recounted how officers had traced a name linked to a car seen in CCTV footage. The footage showed a man standing with Ms Everard next to a vehicle in Clapham, where she had been walking.
It is the first time Det Ch Insp Goodwin has spoken on camera about the case.
Image source, BBC/Sarah Everard family
The marketing assistant was walking home in south London when she was abducted and murdered by Wayne Couzens
She said: “At that time, Wayne Couzens was a name that meant nothing to any of us. So immediately we start researching the name, also the phone number and the address that had been given when he’d hired the car.”
Detectives then found out he was suspected of indecent exposure. Det Ch Insp Goodwin sent a team to Couzens’ house in Kent to question him and, while officers were en route, a detective ran into her office, shut the door, and told her “you need to hear this”.
A researcher on the phone revealed Couzens was a serving Metropolitan Police officer.
Image source, BBC/ Sarah Everard family
An inquiry last week said chances were missed to stop Couzens
Det Ch Insp Goodwin told the documentary: “I knew that I had to tell my boss and 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’.
“And then the same questions went through her head as went through my head: ‘Are you sure?’.”
Image source, BBC/Everard family
Ms Everard’s family have said warning signs were “overlooked” throughout Couzens’ policing career
Former Met detective Nick Harvey was on his way to question Couzens at his house when he discovered the suspect was an officer.
‘It just went silent’
He said: “The gravity of the whole situation then became incredibly clear. You know, the moment I told the team, it just went silent.”
Knocking on Couzens’ front door and showing his warrant card, Mr Harvey said the killer “just went grey”.
“Just… all the colour just ran out of his face,” he said.
Footage then shows Couzens being arrested on suspicion of kidnap in his living room, and Mr Harvey questioning him. When asked about Ms Everard’s disappearance, Couzens replies he has financial problems and had been threatened by a gang and told to kidnap girls on their behalf.
Image source, BBC/Everard family
The documentary makers call Ms Everard’s murder “a watershed moment” for the nation
Couzens said he took Ms Everard to them but denied knowing what happened to her next.
“At some point you’re gonna end up looking Sarah’s family in the eyes,” Mr Harvey tells him, pushing him to confess.
“Your family are going to be there,” Mr Harvey says. “You’ve got an opportunity here right now to help us find Sarah and bring her back home to her family.”
Det Ch Insp Goodwin also told the documentary the force might never have known how Couzens carried out the kidnap, had it not been for “a really significant witness” in a passing vehicle, who saw Couzens handcuffing Ms Everard at the side of the road.
Witness saw ‘what had happened’
“She’s seen a woman being handcuffed by an undercover officer,” the detective said of the eyewitness. “And she hadn’t thought much of it, other to remark to her partner who is in the car that she didn’t think women got handcuffed very often.
“Now, what she didn’t realise was, of course, she was witnessing Sarah and what had happened to her.
“Without that statement, we may have never known how he actually got her into that car.”
Image source, Met Police
Wayne Couzens, now 51, was sentenced to a whole-life term and will never be freed
She also said the CCTV footage of Couzens standing near Ms Everard suggested he had “used his warrant card” to kidnap her, as it appeared to show him holding his arm out towards her.
The murder of Ms Everard, a marketing assistant abducted by Couzens as she walked home in south London on 3 March 2021, put a spotlight on violence against women and girls.
Couzens was sentenced to a whole-life term in prison and will never be released.
Last year, he admitted three counts of indecent exposure, one of which he committed four days before killing Ms Everard.
The three offences happened in Kent, two of them at a fast-food restaurant in February 2021, and another at woodland in Deal in 2020.
Last week, an inquiry chaired by Lady Elish Angiolini said Couzens should never have been given his job as a police officer and chances to stop the sexual predator were repeatedly ignored and missed.
Lady Angiolini said “without a significant overhaul, there is nothing to stop another Couzens operating in plain sight.”
Viewers in the UK can watch Sarah Everard: The Search for Justice on BBC iPlayer from 06:00 GMT or on BBC One from 21:00GMT on Tuesday 5 March.
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