Killer cop Wayne Couzens wasn’t ‘one bad apple’—he fitted easily into the Met

Wayne Couzens, a Metropolitan police officer, raped and murdered Sarah Everard in 2021

One error of judgement in the report into Sarah Everard’s murder is that it states, “Wayne Couzens was never fit to be a police officer.”

The reality is, he fitted right in. From his mates in hated‑filled WhatsApp groups to his colleague and multiple rapist David Carrick in the same armed unit, cops are the filth in a sewer of an institution.

The report says Couzens “was not wholly a product of his working environment”. But it adds, “Those environments did nothing to discourage his misogynistic view of women.”

It is more than that. Last year the Met launched a reformed vetting system of its 45,000 employees that has seen more than 100 officers dismissed for gross misconduct.

Investigations into alleged violence against women or sexual abuse by more than 1,600 serving officers and staff are ongoing. 

Beyond the review of old cases some 1,151 police officers in England and Wales are under investigation for sexual or domestic abuse, including 657 in the Met. One in seven of the overall total has been allowed to continue working as usual while 428 have been placed on restricted duties. Only 378 have been suspended.

Allegations against cops are so widespread that the Met Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, admitted last year that he couldn’t guarantee a woman reporting a rape wouldn’t be interviewed by a predator.

He said he expects two or three cases of misconduct up in court every week for the foreseeable future. A later part to the Angiolini inquiry will probe the career of Carrick, who was sentenced to life last year for the rape of multiple women.

Carrick was only caught after one of his victims heard a statement made by Sarah Everard’s devastated mother and was moved to contact Hertfordshire Police. It wasn’t because of any action by the Met.

So far the inquiry has not called the Met institutionally misogynist. But it may do so when it looks at the culture of the Met in the wake of the Couzens and Carrick cases.

A previous review after the murder of Sarah Everard by Dame Louise Casey did say the cops were “institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic”.

Notably Mark Rowley doesn’t accept that terminology, because it points to the fundamental truth that all the rotten apples are incubated and protected by the hate-filled and corrupt barrel that is the Met.