Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Killer cop’s crimes ‘go back 20 years’
WAYNE Couzens’s history of alleged sexual offending went back nearly 20 years before he committed murder, according to the Angiolini inquiry.
He is accused of having sexually assaulted a girl, barely in her teens, while he was in his early 20s before he joined Kent Police as a special constable in 2006.
The inquiry team found there were instances where he showed extreme violent pornography to friends and police colleagues, in a move to test their boundaries.
He was also found to have sent unsolicited images of his genitals to women, was accused of sexual touching, and there are claims he possessed indecent images of children.
The inquiry found he paid women online to masturbate on clothes and send them to him.
Both Kent and the Metropolitan Police were criticised for inadequate investigations into claims of indecent exposure against Couzens.
There was a series of incidents where he was accused of flashing - three of which he was sentenced for last year, despite already having received a whole life jail term for Sarah Everard’s murder.
These were masturbating in front of a lone female cyclist in a Kent country lane in 2020, and twice exposing his genitals to staff at a fast-food restaurant in February 2021 in the days before Miss Everard’s murder.
He drove his own car and used his own credit card at the outlet but no action was taken at the time, with investigating officer PC Samantha Lee later sacked for failing to investigate properly.
Another two similar incidents at the fast-food restaurant were ordered to lie on file, and there were two incidents in 2008 and 2021 that were reported to the Met and Kent Police respectively at the time when Couzens allegedly exposed himself, but there was insufficient evidence to bring charges.
In 2008, a woman pushing a pram in south London reported that a man called out hello to her while masturbating, while in 2021 another woman was returning from a run when she saw a man matching Couzens’s description exposing his erect penis.
In 2015, a member of the public reported having seen a man driving around in Kent with his genitalia exposed, giving the make, model, colour and registration number of the car.
Couzens was identified as the keeper of the car but Kent Police closed the investigation with no further action.
Lady Elish Angiolini said: “This was a grave error and a very obvious red flag.”
She called for indecent exposure to be taken more seriously and for victims to be encouraged to report crimes.