The family of Sarah Everard have spoken of their anger and distress after a damning inquiry found that police missed repeated opportunities to confront Wayne Couzens before he raped and murdered the 33-year-old marketing executive. In a statement issued after the first part of the Angiolini Inquiry was published, Sarah’s mother Sue, father Jeremy, and siblings Katie and James said they believed she died because her killer was a police officer.

“We believe that Sarah died because he was a police officer – she would never have got into a stranger’s car,” the family said. “It is obvious that Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer. Whilst holding a position of trust, in reality he was a serial sex offender. Warning signs were overlooked throughout his career and opportunities to confront him were missed.” The statement came as the inquiry chairwoman, Lady Elish Angiolini, warned that without radical reform there is “nothing to stop another Couzens operating in plain sight”.

Inquiry finds sexual assault allegation predated police career

The Home Office-commissioned inquiry uncovered allegations that Couzens committed a very serious sexual assault against a child who was barely in her teens before he joined the police in 2002. Lady Elish said the allegation was among five other incidents of sexual offending that were never reported to police at the time. Due to the under-reporting of sexual offences, she said she feared there may be even more victims who have yet to come forward.

The 350-page report also revealed that Couzens had allegedly tried to kidnap a woman at knifepoint in north London in 1995, when he was 23. That incident was not reported to the Metropolitan Police at the time, but the woman came forward after recognising Couzens following his arrest for Sarah Everard’s murder. During the mid-1990s, he was also accused of carrying out a serious sexual assault on a child, and in 2004 he allegedly exposed himself to a teenage girl in south London.

Couzens is further accused of raping a woman at a singles night at a bar in east London between late 2006 and early 2007, as well as another rape allegation in October 2019 under a bridge. In the summer of 2019, he is accused of sexually assaulting a man dressed in drag at a bar in Kent, telling the victim that he was a police officer and inviting him outside to perform a sex act.

Missed warnings during policing career

Couzens served in three police forces before he murdered Sarah Everard. He became a special constable for Kent Police in 2002, but failed vetting to become a regular officer in 2008. Despite this, he was allowed to remain as a special with all the same powers as a regular constable and was permitted to work alone. The inquiry found that he hid the level of his personal debts and exaggerated the amount of time he had spent in the Territorial Army.

When he joined the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, an outside force – Thames Valley Police – carried out vetting and found that he should not be recruited, in line with rules around officers with heavy personal debts. But this was ignored. In 2018, when he joined the Metropolitan Police, a search of the Police National Database found “no trace”. In fact, there were entries about an incident in 2013 when he was reported missing from home, and an allegation of indecent exposure from 2015. These were also missed when he applied to be a firearms officer the following year.

Police investigations into alleged indecent exposure in 2015 and in February 2021, just days before Sarah Everard was killed, were “of poor quality and inadequate”, said the report. Kent Police has since apologised for failing to properly investigate the 2015 flashing incident. The force admitted the investigation was flawed because it was allocated to an officer who was not a trained investigator.

Family’s devastating words

Sarah Everard’s family said they had found hope that the inquiry’s “significant findings” could lead to changes that would keep other women safe. They said: “As a family, the inquiry has helped us, not just because of its significant findings, but because its implementation made us feel that Sarah’s life was valued and her memory honoured. Her death has not been dismissed as a tragic event to be acknowledged with sympathy and then forgotten – questions have been raised and actions taken to investigate how this tragedy happened.

“It is almost three years now since Sarah died. We no longer wait for her call; we no longer expect to see her. We know she won’t be there at family gatherings. But the desperate longing to have her with us remains and the loss of Sarah pervades every part of our lives.”

Reactions from police and political leaders

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said Couzens’ crimes represented “the most appalling betrayal of trust”. He said the report was an “urgent call to action” and that the force must go “further and faster” to earn back public trust. “We must go further and faster to earn back the trust of all those whose confidence in policing has been shaken by events of recent years,” he said. “Regardless of our significant progress over the past year, the scale of the change that is needed inevitably means it will take time and it is not yet complete.”

Home Secretary James Cleverly said Sarah was “failed in more ways than one” by the people who were meant to keep her safe. He told the Commons that the policing of the vigil held for Sarah Everard in 2021 was “awful” and said he would do everything he could to ensure such situations were never repeated. “The act of pure evil committed against Sarah shocked the nation to its core,” he said. “The man who committed these crimes is not a reflection on the majority of dedicated police officers working day in, day out to help people.”

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the report exposed “a catalogue of appalling failures” and that Couzens “should have been stopped and could have been stopped from being a police officer”. She added that the government had been “repeatedly warned” about vetting failures, including in reports from 2012, 2019, 2022 and 2023.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said the inquiry “shines a light on systematic failings in police investigations, vetting and the handling of misconduct allegations”. He vowed to ensure lessons were learned and acted upon quickly as part of a process of major reform.

Andrea Simon, director of the End Violence Against Women coalition, said Sarah’s murder was “absolutely devastating” and “entirely preventable”. She called on the government and police leaders to transform policing culture to root out misogyny, racism and other forms of discrimination. Anna Birley, co-founder of Reclaim These Streets, said the report was “the worst kind of broken record – inquiry after inquiry describing serious failings in police policy, processes and culture but time and again an utter lack of action or change”.

Background to the case

Sarah Everard was walking home from a friend’s house in Clapham, south London, on the evening of 3 March 2021 when she was abducted by Couzens. He used his Metropolitan Police-issue warrant card to trick her into believing she was being arrested for breaching coronavirus lockdown rules. He handcuffed her and bundled her into his car, then drove to a remote rural area near Dover in Kent, where he raped and strangled her with his police belt before burning her body.

Couzens, then 48, had been an armed officer with the Met’s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Unit. He pleaded guilty to Sarah’s abduction, rape and murder and was sentenced to a whole-life order in September 2021. The case sparked national outrage and widespread protests about women’s safety, as well as a major review of police culture and vetting procedures.

The Angiolini Inquiry was commissioned by the Home Office to examine how Couzens was able to remain a police officer despite repeated red flags. Its first report concluded that he was “never fit to be a police officer” and that his offending behaviour spanned more than two decades. Lady Elish said his crimes were “the culmination of a trajectory of sexually motivated behaviour and offending”, including indecent exposure, sexual assault on a child, sexual touching and sharing unsolicited photos of his genitals. She also noted that there were allegations that he possessed indecent images of children.

In a statement, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said the report reflected its own recommendations, including better information sharing so forces are notified when a police officer is linked to an ongoing investigation. The IOPC called for a national licensing system for police officers, similar to other professions, to bring consistency and accountability to the service.

The inquiry’s findings have intensified pressure on police leaders to implement fundamental changes. Lady Elish warned that the social contract on which policing is based had been badly damaged by Couzens’ actions. She said police leaders needed to ensure that another officer like him was not “operating in plain sight”. Her report will now be considered in full by the Home Office, which said it would respond to the recommendations in due course.

Source: Yahoo News News