Met defended the indefensible... and top cop had to go
SARAH Everard’s planned walk home was utterly normal, which is partly why the events that followed were so shocking.
In March 2021, Sarah, 33, crossed Clapham Common, a wealthy area of south London.
She was last seen on CCTV heading towards her Brixton Hill home at around 9.30pm.
Met Police firearms officer Wayne Couzens, 47, was cruising the streets in a rented SUV, searching for prey.
He used his warrant card and handcuffs to “arrest” Sarah on the pretext of a Covid rules breach. He forced her into the car then raped and strangled her in a sickening five-hour ordeal.
Scotland Yard’s cack-handed response triggered a chain of events that would lead to the abrupt removal of Dame Cressida Dick, its first female commissioner in 188 years.
Just three days before killing Sarah, Couzens allegedly flashed at two female McDonald’s workers.
It later emerged he regularly saw prostitutes, took dangerous body-building steroids and earned the nickname “The Rapist” at his previous force, Kent Police.
Confidence in the Met plummeted as new information following Couzens’ jailing revealed a shocking picture of misogyny.
Over the previous 11 years, more than 750 officers and staff faced sexual misconduct claims, including harassment, assault, rape and using a position of power for sexual gain.Yet just 83 were sacked.
Ex-Met chief superintendent Parm Sandhu called Scotland Yard “sexist and misogynistic”, saying women officers feared being abandoned in an on-duty emergency if they complained.
She added women officers married to police “won’t report domestic violence either” because of the same issues.
Couzens’s phone revealed he and officers from three different forces were in aWhatsApp group that shared alleged misogynistic and racist messages.
Officers from the other forces were suspended and removed from work, but two Met accused were allowed to stay on duty. Another troubling aspect of the Couzens case, never previously revealed, is the possibility Sarah was not his first victim.
Former Met detective chief superintendent Albert Patrick said: “You don’t suddenly, aged 47, pick a girl off the streets, kidnap, rape and murder her, cut her body up and dump it in a fridge.And then to go back with his missus and kids to the woods where he dumped the body?
“He’s just not somebody who has done that as a one-off.”
Ex-detective chief inspector David McKelvey told me: “It’s too sophisticated for a first-time offence. Couzens has all the hallmarks of a serial killer.”
An independent inquiry into Sarah’s case is yet to report, but many believe it could present another catastrophe for the Met. In February, London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, finally lost patience with Dame Cressida after officers at Charing Cross shared racist, sexist, misogynistic and Islamophobic messages.
Although Dame Cressida told Mr Khan: “I recognise that this is very serious and urgent action is required”, she refused to sack the officers, claiming she could not intervene in an independent misconduct process.
As Mr Khan made it clear he was not satisfied with her plan to address the issues, Dame Cressida felt she had to call time on the job she loved – an ignominious end for the trailblazing officer.
One simple reform Met chief Sir Mark Rowley might consider is to ditch the extraordinary defensiveness.
All too often, the Met has tried to defend the indefensible, arguing against a reality that seems all too clear to others.
Such cover-ups sap public confidence in this institution.
● Tom Harper is author of BrokenYard: The Fall Of The Metropolitan Police (Biteback, £20). To order with free UK P&P, visit expressbokshop.com or call 020 3176 3832.