Life in jail for UK policeman in rape-murder
COUZENS EXPLOITED LOCKDOWN CURBS TO FALSELY CHARGE VICTIM
ABritish police officer who falsely arrested a woman for breaking coronavirus restrictions, then kidnapped, raped and murdered her, was given a rare whole-life jail term yesterday.
Judge Adrian Fulford told Wayne Couzens, 48, his offences were “grotesque”, after he snatched Sarah Everard off the streets of south London in March.
Everard’s disappearance sparked one of Britain’s most high-profile missing persons investigations and protests calling for better safety for women in public spaces.
But there has been widespread horror and revulsion at the involvement of a police officer, who exploited lockdown restrictions and abused his position of trust to kill.
Couzens, who served with the elite diplomatic protection unit of London’s Metropolitan Police, admitted kidnapping, rape and murder at a hearing in July and was sacked.
Sentencing him at the Old Bailey, in central London, Fulford called Couzens’ actions “devastating, tragic and wholly brutal” and said his victim was “wholly blameless”.
“The misuse of a police officer’s role such as occurred in this case in order to kidnap, rape and murder a lone victim is of equal seriousness as a murder for the purpose of advancing a political, religious ideological cause,” he added.
Couzens, who will die in jail, becomes the latest of only 60 criminals who will never be considered for release.
‘Warning signs’
Couzens, who will die in jail, becomes the latest of only 60 criminals who will never be considered for release.
Former colleagues said he had disgraced their uniform, and the Met Police said it was “sickened, angered and devastated” by his crimes. The highprofile case refocused attention on how the police handle complaints of violence against women and girls in Britain.
Questions have been raised about why previous complaints of indecent exposure against Couzens, said to have been a user of sex workers and violent pornography, were not dealt with.
The leader of Britain’s main opposition Labour party, Keir Starmer, a former chief prosecutor for England and Wales, said legislation needed to be tightened.
He also called for a review of how Couzens was able to “slip through the net”, despite a series of “warning signs”.
Starmer’s Labour colleague, Harriet Harman, a former women’s minister, said the case had “shattered” women’s confidence in the police and called for the resignation of Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick.
The Met, Britain’s biggest police force, was already under fire for its botched initial handling of the double murder of two sisters in a London park last year.
In that case, detectives were accused of not taking their disappearance seriously, and two officers were suspended for taking crime scene photos and sharing them on WhatsApp.
Demonstrators outside the Old Bailey said the Met Police had “blood on their hands”.
Couzens snatched Everard, a 33-year-old marketing consultant, as she walked to her home in Brixton, south London, from a friend’s house in nearby Clapham.