Everard lawyer says women at more risk of violence now

VIOLENCE against women and girls is getting worse, the prosecutor in the Wayne Couzens trial has said.

Tom Little KC said he did not think the number of attacks was “reducing or decreasing in any way” following the murder of Sarah Everard in March 2021.

He was speaking on camera for the first time in a new documentary on the 33-year-old’s death.

Sarah Everard: The Search For Justice has been two-and-a-half years in the making and will air on Tuesday evening on BBC One, days after the third anniversary of her death.

Mr Little said that in order to secure a whole-life order meaning Couzens , now 51, would never be released, he had to prove he had used his position to trick Miss Everard into getting into his car in Clapham, south-west London.

“That is a situation that had never arisen before. Police officers had murdered but they had never done so while acting as a police officer.”

He added: “I don’t think the incidences of violence against women and girls is reducing or decreasing in any way. In fact it would appear to me that it’s getting worse.”

Also speaking for the first time is Detective Chief Inspector Katherine Goodwin, who led the investigation. She said the thing that most troubles her is winning back public trust

She also revealed the police discovered Couzens was suspected of an indecent exposure offence days earlier in Kent before they found out he was a serving officer.

A team was sent to Couzens’ house in Kent to question him. But while officers were en route, a detective ran into Miss Goodwin’s office, shut the door and told her: “You need to hear this.”

A researcher on the phone then revealed that Couzens was a serving Metropolitan |Police officer.

Miss Goodwin said: “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.”

Former Met detective Nick Harvey was the first to question Couzens. He said: “You know, the moment I told the team it just went silent.”

In the year after Miss Everard’s murder 138 women were killed by men in the UK or a man was the chief suspect.

In the same year in England and Wales, an estimated 798,000 women experienced sexual assault and more than 100,000 were raped or were a victim of attempted rape.

Sarah Everard: The Search For Justice is on tomorrow at 9pm on BBC One.