Couzens could have been stopped in 2015 ... six years before he killed Sarah Everard

WAYNE Couzens could have been arrested for indecent exposure years before he raped and murdered Sarah Everard, it emerged yesterday.

He was reported for flashing at a pedestrian in 2015 but the investigating officer at Kent Police failed to act after accessing a file revealing that Couzens was a former special constable in the force.

Extraordinarily, Couzens’ name was broadcast as a suspected sex offender on a radio channel to all Kent Police officers but no further action was taken.

Now it can be revealed that the sergeant who dismissed the case was stationed in Ashford when Couzens worked there as a special constable. The sergeant also knew Couzens’ brother David, a serving Kent Police officer.

The blundering officer, who has been given anonymity, twice accessed a file that detailed Couzens’ work for Kent Police between 2006 and 2009 before logging that ‘no crime’ had been committed. The events came to light only when an investigation was launched by the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) after Couzens abducted, raped and murdered the 33-year-old marketing executive in March 2021.

Yesterday, it emerged that the sergeant was merely told to ‘ undergo reflective practice, including training on sexual offences’ after he was found last month to have breached police standards for duties and responsibilities.

A panel found his failure did not ‘amount to misconduct’. His disciplinary hearing was held by Kent Police in private as he was not accused of the more serious charge of gross misconduct.

An IOPC report on the matter published yesterday revealed that 50-yearold sexual predator Couzens first came to the attention of police in June 2015 when a member of the public dialled 999 to report that a man had exposed himself on a main road in Dover while driving past him. The pedestrian provided

‘Did not establish if he was a suspect’

Couzens’ vehicle registration which was passed to a sergeant to investigate but he ‘did not consider whether it would be appropriate to interview Wayne Couzens in relation to the offence or take other action to establish whether he was a suspect or not’.

Instead the pedestrian’s account and ‘mental state’ was questioned after the sergeant discovered he had previously received warnings about drugs and was living in a shelter for the homeless, where staff said he was not ‘ compos mentis’ and not ‘wholly reliable’.

The IOPC found ‘there was no evidence to suggest the sergeant made any efforts to confirm the reliability of the informant’ or to ‘identify the informant’s partner as a witness to the indecent exposure and make contact with her’.

The sergeant twice accessed Couzens’ ‘nominal file’ containing his personal details and the number of investigations he was assigned to when he was a special constable for Kent Police, but the IOPC said they could not establish whether he read those details.

The sergeant later denied knowing Couzens, although they worked in the same station before Couzens left to join the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and later the Metropolitan Police.

He admitted knowing Couzens’ brother, David, a serving Kent officer with whom he worked in the firearms unit between 2007 and 2012. But said he was just ‘a casual professional acquaintance’.

When Wayne Couzens’ name, address and car registration was broadcast to the force, his brother was not on duty.

Days later the sergeant decided that ‘the named suspect had not been identified’, there were discrepancies in the pedestrian’s account and he stated the crime was ‘not detectable’. In a police log, he recorded there had been ‘no crime’.

In May 2022, the IOPC found a case to answer for misconduct against the sergeant for failing to follow all reasonable lines of enquiry. The IOPC report published yesterday said: ‘Evidence we gathered showed that while the pedestrian did not support the investigation, the officer did not carry out CCTV enquiries or seek to identify witnesses, nor did he contact Couzens.’

It went on say that Couzens was not listed on police records as a suspect, so it did not affect his vetting when he applied to join the Metropolitan Police in 2018.

Now the IOPC has called for the National Police Chiefs’ Council to consider developing a system that automatically flags when an officer is under criminal investigation. The IOPC’s Amanda Rowe said: ‘Our investigations into the... handling of the indecent exposure allegations highlighted there is no system in place to alert forces when a police officer becomes a crime suspect.

We believe this needs to change. It may not have prevented Couzens from committing his crimes, but if it is combined with the change in culture that policing recognises is necessary, it could help prevent it from happening again in the future.’