How politicians and police reacted to the report into Sarah Everard’s murder

Wayne Couzens, who murdered Sarah Everard, served in an armed unit of the Metropolitan police

The establishment closed ranks in response to a report into the cop who raped and murdered Sarah Everard.

Lady Elish Angiolini’s report into the Metropolitan police ­firearms officer Wayne Couzens was published last week. The National Police Chiefs’ Council chairman Gavin Stephens said he was “aghast”.

Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said the case “damages the relationship between the public and the police”—which is something of an understatement. Rishi Sunak said he was “sickened” and “appalled”.

Home secretary James Cleverly said Everard was “failed in more ways than one by the people who were meant to keep her safe”. But he stressed it was “not a reflection on the majority of dedicated police officers”.

The only honest response was from Sarah Everard’s family who said, “We believe Sarah died because he was a police officer. She would never have got into a stranger’s car.”

Everard was walking in Clapham, south London, when Couzens used his warrant card to coerce her into the back of a car on 3 March 2021. He tricked Everard into thinking he could arrest her for breaking lockdown rules in place during the coronavirus pandemic.

Couzens pled guilty to her kidnap, rape and murder. Misogyny and violence against women is enabled and allowed to thrive within the police.

The report noted that Couzens swapped homophobic, sexist and racist messages with other officers in a WhatsApp group. Six cops were investigated, three were charged with crimes. The fact that Couzens was one of them wasn’t mentioned at their trials.

The inquiry found that he had previously been reported to police eight times for indecent exposure. He was accused of attempting to kidnap someone at knifepoint and raping two women.

The inquiry also heard evidence that Couzens committed a “very serious sexual assault of a child barely in her teens”.

The report states, “Wayne Couzens was abusing women long before he joined the police and is likely to have victimised more women than have reported such allegations against him.” He was allowed to be a so called “elite” firearms cop, despite failing vetting at least twice and being chucked out of the Territorial Army.

A Police National Database check came back as “no trace” after it “missed” Couzens going missing in unexplained circumstances and his car being linked to indecent exposure.

Angiolini noted, “The victims who were subject to his indecent exposures and who reported his offending were not taken sufficiently seriously by the police.”

The woman he had tried to kidnap had reported it to the police but no one was caught. She went back to the cops after Couzens was charged with murder. That time no action was taken because of “evidential difficulties”.

The inquiry found that Couzens “deliberately targeted and exerted power over his victims”.

It said, “He exploited vulnerabilities, such as youth and inexperience, previous abuse and in some cases made them question their own responsibility for what happened, thereby deterring them from reporting his behaviour.”

Three police forces “could have and should have” stopped Wayne Couzens—but they didn’t. And so it goes. Everyone is “sorry” but say “progress has been made”—both Cleverly and Rowley like that one.

But as Angiolini said, “There is nothing to stop another Wayne Couzens operating in plain sight.”