Met Police missed multiple opportunities to stop Sarah Everard’s killer, review finds
The Met Police missed multiple opportunities to stop Sarah Everard’s killer Wayne Couzens, a new report into the force’s failings has found.
The Met Police missed multiple opportunities to stop Sarah Everard’s killer Wayne Couzens – who should never have been a police officer – a damning new report into the force’s failings has found.
Policing and vetting needs a “significant overhaul”, without which “there is nothing to stop another Couzens operating in plain sight,” Dame Elish Angiolini said in her independent review.
The grim document on the first part of a Home Office commissioned inquiry, published today, revealed the killer police officer “allegedly committed a very serious sexual assault against a child (barely in her teens) before his policing career even started”.
Speaking to reporters, Angiolini said: “Failures in recruitment and vetting meant Couzens was able to continue a policing career which should have been denied to him.
Red flags were repeatedly ignored meaning he was granted the privilege of serving in three separate police forces, including as an authorised firearms officer.”
She added: “The Inquiry is aware of five other alleged incidents of sexual offending involving Couzens which, for many understandable reasons, were never reported to the police. Given the known under-reporting of sexual offences, I believe there may be even more victims of Couzens’ offending.”
The report calls for a radical overhaul of police vetting and recruitment and Angiolini states: “Now is the time for change.”
She urges “all those in authority in every police force in the country to read this report and take immediate action”.
In a statement, Everard’s family said the inquiry “made us feel that Sarah’s life was valued and her memory honoured”.
They said: “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. 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.
“We believe that Sarah died because he was a police officer – she would never have got into a stranger’s car.
“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.”
The former armed Metropolitan Police officer, 51, will never be released from prison after he abducted, raped and murdered marketing executive Sarah Everard in March 2021.
Couzens used his status as a police officer to trick Everard into thinking he could arrest her for breaking lockdown rules in place at the time.
Following the harrowing crime, which sparked public protests over concerns for women’s safety, it emerged Couzens had been reportedly nicknamed “the rapist” while an officer.
He was also later revealed to have been part of a Whatsapp group with fellow officers that shared disturbing racist, homophobic and misogynist remarks.
Couzens 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.
He 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. But he was not caught despite driving his own car and using his own credit card at the time.
Then-Met Police constable Samantha Lee was sacked and barred from being a police officer after it was found she had not properly investigated the incidents.
Speaking on LBC Radio, London mayor Sadiq Khan said: “Sarah Everard had a fantastic future ahead of her and that was taken away from her by this officer.
“We should remember her this weekend – it’s the third anniversary of her tragic and premature death.
“I’ve been concerned for some time that there are systemic and cultural issues within our police across the country that allow people like him to become and stay a police officer.
“We now have confirmation, there were red flags that should have brought him to attention and kicked him out. It’s far too easy to become a police officer, and far too hard to kick them out.”
