Sarah Everard’s killer Wayne Couzens should never have been police officer – Angiolini Inquiry

Sarah Everard’s killer Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer and opportunities were missed to stop him, an inquiry has said.

A radical overhaul of police vetting and recruitment is needed now, the independent review found.

Couzens abducted, raped and murdered Ms Everard while off duty in March 2021.

Ms Everard’s family said warning signs were “overlooked” throughout Couzens’ policing career – which spanned nearly 20 years.

Police “repeatedly failed” to spot warning signs about his unsuitability to be an officer, the inquiry said, and it identified at least five incidents which were not reported to police.

The inquiry said this included evidence Couzens allegedly committed a very serious sexual assault against a child, described as barely in her teens, before his policing career began.

Lady Elish Angiolini, the lawyer leading the three-stage inquiry, believes there could be more victims. She said: “Without a significant overhaul, there is nothing to stop another Couzens operating in plain sight.

“Now is the time for change,” she added, urging “all those in authority in every police force in the country to read this report and take immediate action”.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley described the report as “an urgent call to action for all of us in policing”.

In a statement Ms Everard’s parents and siblings Sue, Jeremy, Katie and James, said “it is obvious that Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer” and that “while holding a position of trust, in reality he was a serial sex offender”.

“We believe that Sarah died because he was a police officer. She would never have got into a stranger’s car,” they added.

Home Secretary James Cleverly said Ms Everard was “failed in more ways than one by the people who were meant to keep her safe”.

Lady Elish was asked to see if red flags were missed about Couzens, who was an armed officer guarding high-profile buildings and had finished a shift at the US Embassy before he killed Ms Everard.

Couzens, now 51, joined Kent Police as a special constable in 2002 and became an officer with the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) in 2011.

He transferred to the Met in 2018 and was on armed protection duties at Parliament between February and July 2020.

Lady Elish’s first report highlights how Couzens’ liking for violent and extreme pornography, and his history of unmanaged debt and alleged sexual offending date back nearly 20 years before Ms Everard’s murder.

His crimes were “the culmination of a trajectory of sexually motivated behaviour and offending”, including indecent exposure, the sexual assault on a child, sexual touching and sharing unsolicited photos of his genitals, the report found.

Lady Elish said there were allegations Couzens possessed indecent images of children.

Met Commissioner Sir Mark accepted the scale of change needed “will take time and it is not yet complete”.

“The majority of my Met colleagues share my determination to reform by both confronting the risk posed by predatory men in policing, and also, improving our protection of women and children across London,” he said.

He was not caught despite driving his own car and using his own credit card at the time.

Kent Police also apologised for failing to properly investigate when Couzens was reported for indecent exposure in 2015.

Lady Elish’s report said victims of his indecent exposures who reported his offending were not taken sufficiently seriously by the police.

“The police officers who responded to those victims were not adequately trained, equipped or motivated to investigate the allegations properly,” the report said.

Chief Constable Gavin Stephens of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, which represents force leaders, said the inquiry’s report was a “glowing red signal to all police officers”.

“We collectively will not stop until the public, especially women and girls, get the policing they deserve and confidence in our role as protectors is rebuilt,” he said.

His colleague Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth called Ms Everard’s murder “a watershed moment”. “We’re turning the tables on men who are violent to women,” she said.

Jamie Klingler who founded the group Reclaim These Streets in the wake of Ms Everard’s murder said she felt worse about women’s safety and police conduct than she did three years ago.

“I’m not scared there’s one more Wayne Couzens on the Metropolitan Police, I’m scared there’s many, many of them,” she said.