Sarah’s killer to end his days in jail
THE family of Sarah Everard have expressed relief that the police officer who kidnapped, raped and murdered her will die in prison.
Wayne Couzens, 48, was handed a whole life sentence yesterday for killing the 33-year-old marketing executive after using his warrant card and handcuffs to snatch her off the street, using Covid lockdown rules to make a false arrest.
The Metropolitan Police firearms officer, who had clocked off from a 12-hour shift at the US embassy that morning, drove his victim 80 miles before raping her, strangling her to death with his police belt and burning her body.
In his sentencing, Lord Justice Fulford said the case in which a serving officer abused his position was so exceptional it warranted a whole life order.
Couzens stood shaking slightly in the dock as he was sentenced, but did not lift his head to face his victim’s family, who calmly looked on from the well of the court as he shuffled out of court.
Ms Everard’s parents, Jeremy and Susan, clasped hands and hugged police officers after he was taken down to the cells.
Later, they issued a statement saying they were pleased with the sentence, adding: “Nothing can make things better, nothing can bring Sarah back, but knowing he will be imprisoned forever brings some relief. Sarah lost her life needlessly and cruelly and all the years of life she had yet to enjoy were stolen from her.
“Wayne Couzens held a position of trust as a police officer and we are outraged and sickened that he abused this trust in order to lure Sarah to her death. The world is a safer place with him imprisoned.”
In his sentencing, Lord Justice Fulford said Couzens had researched how best to commit his crimes for at least a month before abducting Ms Everard as she walked home from a friend’s house in Clapham, on March 3.
“You kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard, having long planned a violent sexual assault on a yet-to-be-selected victim who you intended to coerce into your custody,” he told Couzens. “You have irretrievably damaged the lives of Sarah Everard’s family and friends.”
The judge described Ms Everard as “a wholly blameless victim of a grotesquely executed series of offences that culminated in her death and the disposal of her body”.
“I have not the slightest doubt that the defendant used his position as a police officer to coerce her on a wholly false pretext into the car he had hired for this purpose,” he said.
“It is most likely that he suggested to Sarah Everard that she had breached the restrictions on movement that were being enforced during that stage of the pandemic.”
Ms Everard, who lived in Brixton, south London, may have been alive for up to five hours before she was strangled to death, the court heard.
Couzens then burned her body in a refrigerator in an area of woodland he owned in Hoads Wood, near Ashford, before dumping the remains in a nearby pond.
The judge said her state of mind in her final hours “would have been as bleak and agonising as it is possible to imagine”.
The judge said the seriousness of the case was so “exceptionally high” that it warranted a whole life order.
He told Couzens he had “eroded the confidence” the public are entitled to have in the police, “utterly betrayed” his family and “very considerably added to the sense of insecurity that many have living in our cities, perhaps particularly women, when travelling by themselves and especially at night”.
The judge paid tribute to the dignity of Ms Everard’s family, whose court statements revealed the human impact of Couzens’ “warped, selfish and brutal offending which was both sexual and homicidal”.