Sarah Everard’s killer Wayne Couzens should never have been given a job as a police officer and chances to stop the sexual predator were repeatedly ignored and missed, an inquiry has found. Police “repeatedly failed” to spot warning signs about his “unsuitability for office”, a damning report concluded amid fears many more women and girls could have been victims of Couzens.
Publishing her findings on Thursday, inquiry chairwoman Lady Elish Angiolini warned without a radical overhaul of policing practices and culture, there is “nothing to stop another Couzens operating in plain sight”.
Three different police forces “could and should” have stopped Couzens from getting a job as an officer, she said, as she identified a catalogue of failings in how he was recruited and vetted, and how allegations against him were investigated.
Miss Everard’s family said in response they believe the 33-year-old marketing executive died because Couzens was a police officer, adding: “She would never have got into a stranger’s car.”
Branding Couzens a “predatory sex offender and murderer”, the inquiry laid bare a history of alleged sexual offending dating back nearly 20 years before the off-duty armed Metropolitan Police officer abducted Miss Everard in March 2021.
According to the report, over the last two years the inquiry uncovered evidence Couzens was accused of a string of other incidents of sexual abuse, including a “very serious sexual assault of a child barely into her teens”.
The findings identified at least five incidents which were not reported to police, with Lady Elish saying she believes there could be more victims.
Setting out a raft of recommendations to “make sure something like this can never happen again”, Lady Elish said: “Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer. And, without a significant overhaul, there is nothing to stop another Couzens operating in plain sight.
“Now is the time for change.”
She urged “all those in authority in every police force in the country” to read the report and “take immediate action”.
Among the measures, Lady Elish called for an urgent review of indecent exposure charges against serving officers and said reports of the crime need to be taken seriously.
Miss Everard’s mother Sue, father Jeremy, sister Katie and brother James said in a statement: “It is obvious that Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer. Whilst holding a position of trust, in relative he was a serial sex offender.
“Warning signs were overlooked throughout his career and opportunities to confront him were missed.
“We believe that Sarah died because he was a police officer – she would never have got into a stranger’s car.”
Couzens – who will never be released from prison – used his status as a police officer to trick Miss Everard into thinking he could arrest her for breaking lockdown rules in place during the coronavirus pandemic.
After the harrowing killing, it emerged there had been concerns about Couzens’s behaviour while he was a police officer, with reports he was nicknamed “the rapist”.
He joined Kent Police as a special constable in 2002, became an officer with the civil nuclear constabulary in 2011 and then moved to the Met in 2018.
Couzens indecently exposed himself three times before the murder, including twice at a drive-through fast-food restaurant in Kent in the days prior to the killing.
He was not caught despite driving his own car and using his own credit card at the time.
Then-Met police constable Samantha Lee was sacked and barred from being a police officer after it was found she had not properly investigated the incidents.
Couzens was also later revealed to have been part of a WhatsApp group with fellow officers that shared disturbing racist, homophobic and misogynist remarks.
Ordered by then home secretary Priti Patel, the inquiry tasked with looking at how Couzens came to be a police officer and was able to carry out the murder has so far cost £2.9 million, according to figures to September last year.
The first phase of the inquiry considered evidence covering a 20-year period, reviewing more than 100,000 pages of documents and carrying out 144 interviews, prompting 76 conclusions and making 16 recommendations for improvement.
The inquiry continues in two parts, looking at the crimes of David Carrick and looking at wider problems within the police in the wake of both cases.
