Wayne Couzens admitted to the murder, kidnap and rape of Sarah Everard
By Judith Burns & Thomas Mackintosh
BBC News
Sarah Everard’s killer Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer and opportunities were missed to stop him, an inquiry has said.
A radical overhaul of police vetting and recruitment is needed now, the independent review found.
Couzens abducted, raped and murdered Ms Everard while off duty in March 2021.
Ms Everard’s family said warning signs were “overlooked” throughout his time with the police.
Police “repeatedly failed” to spot warning signs about his unsuitability to be an officer, the inquiry said, and it identified at least five incidents which were not reported to police.
Lady Elish Angiolini, the lawyer leading the two-stage inquiry, believes there could be more victims. She said: “Without a significant overhaul, there is nothing to stop another Couzens operating in plain sight.
“Now is the time for change,” she added, urging “all those in authority in every police force in the country to read this report and take immediate action”.
Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley described the report as “an urgent call to action for all of us in policing”.
In a statement Ms Everard’s parents and siblings Sue, Jeremy, Katie and James, said “it is obvious that Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer” and that “while holding a position of trust, in reality he was a serial sex offender”.
“We believe that Sarah died because he was a police officer. She would never have got into a stranger’s car,” they added.
Home Secretary James Cleverly said Ms Everard was “failed in more ways than one by the people who were meant to keep her safe”.
Lady Elish was asked to see if red flags were missed about Couzens, who was an armed officer guarding high-profile buildings and had finished a shift at the US Embassy before he killed Ms Everard.
Couzens, now 51, joined Kent Police as a special constable in 2002 and became an officer with the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) in 2011.
He transferred to the Met in 2018 and was on armed protection duties at Parliament between February and July 2020.
Lady Elish’s first report highlights how Couzens’ liking for violent and extreme pornography, and his history of unmanaged debt and alleged sexual offending date back nearly 20 years before Ms Everard’s murder.
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.
Lady Elish said there were allegations Couzens possessed indecent images of children.
“It has become clear that Couzens’ terrible crimes were not committed in isolation but were the culmination of a trajectory of sexually motivated behaviour and offending,” the report said.
Image source, Metropolitan Police
CCTV footage played in court showed Couzens and Ms Everard beside a vehicle on Poynders Road in Clapham
- three police forces – Kent, the CNC and the Met – failed to spot the red flags about his unsuitability for office when they “could and should have stopped him”
- Couzens “could enjoy the powers and privileges that accompany the role of police officer” and “he went on to use his knowledge of police powers to falsely arrest Sarah Everard”
- investigations into allegations of indecent exposure by Couzens in 2015, 2020 and 2021, were marred by police failures
- Couzens’ crimes “sit on the same continuum” as sexist and misogynistic behaviour within police culture
“As long as vile behaviour and deeply abusive language are normalised and accepted as ‘banter’ in policing culture and elsewhere, people like Couzens will be able to commit atrocious crimes undetected,” the report said.
The report urged policing leaders to “rethink fundamentally how they lead their organisations to ensure that certain types of behaviour, from the unacceptable to the criminal, are never tolerated”.
Image source, Met Police
Wayne Couzens is serving a whole life jail sentence for the murder of Sarah Everard
Commissioner Sir Mark accepted the scale of change needed “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,” he said.
Separately, Lady Elish’s report looked at Couzens’ behaviour in the days before murdering Ms Everard. During this time, he indecently exposed himself on three occasions – including twice at a drive-through McDonalds in Swanley, Kent.
He was not caught despite driving his own car and using his own credit card at the time.
Kent Police also apologised for failing to properly investigate when Couzens was reported for indecent exposure in 2015.
Image source, Met Police
CCTV footage showed Couzens’ car at the McDonald’s drive-through
Lady Elish’s report said victims of his indecent exposures who reported his offending were not taken sufficiently seriously by the police.
“The police officers who responded to those victims were not adequately trained, equipped or motivated to investigate the allegations properly,” the report said.
Ex-PC Samantha Lee was sacked from the Met last May and barred from being a police officer after it was found she had not properly investigated the incidents.
But, she told the BBC she was made a “scapegoat” for wider Met Police failings.
Mr Cleverly announced a number of measures in response to the report in the House of Commons – including the automatic suspension of officers charged with certain offences.
“Together we must do everything possible to stop such agony being visited on others, build on public trust and to make sure our streets and public places are safe for women and girls,” he told Parliament.
The second stage of the Home Office inquiry will explore the possibility there is a “deep-rooted culture in policing in which finding reasons not to pursue a crime is preferred over any attempt to build a successful case for prosecution”.
