A former Metropolitan police officer who investigated Wayne Couzens over two indecent exposure incidents hours before he kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard has been barred for life from the police service after being found guilty of gross misconduct.
Samantha Lee carried out a “sloppy” and “unprofessional” investigation after Couzens, 50, exposed himself to female staff at a drive-through McDonald’s in Kent on 14 and 27 February 2021, a police disciplinary hearing has found.
She failed to secure CCTV footage when she visited the restaurant on 3 March, hours before Couzens abducted Everard, 33, in Clapham, south-west London.
Lee, 29, lied when later questioned about her actions, claiming she believed the CCTV footage at the restaurant was deleted automatically.
On Tuesday, a disciplinary panel at Palestra House in Southwark, south London, said her dishonesty amounted to gross misconduct.
The legal chair, Darren Snow, said Lee lied about the CCTV at a meeting with two senior officers on 12 March 2021, after the arrest of Couzens three days earlier. He added: “Having lied in that first meeting, which we believe was born out of stress and panic of the situation, PC Lee has simply decided to continue that lie through these proceedings.”
Concluding the panel’s findings, Snow said Lee would have been dismissed without notice had she still been a serving police officer. He added that she would be barred from serving in the police again.
Lee told reporters outside the tribunal that she had been made a scapegoat and that she was the only person to have faced serious disciplinary action over the case. “I feel like I have been a scapegoat,” she said. “I’m a young female PC and I’m the person who’s faced any disciplinary action in relation to this.
“There’s only one person who’s responsible for everything that happened and that is Wayne Couzens,” she added. “I have never lied. I don’t think it has been a fair investigation from the start, when I was declined disclosure and legal advice months after the incident, which were my basic rights for the investigation.
“I make it clear that nothing more that I could have done would have changed the awful outcome of that day. The panel also found that I could not have changed what happened.”
In April this year, Kent police held a misconduct meeting for a sergeant who was found to have breached police standards, but which did not amount to misconduct. It was decided that he would undergo reflective practice, including training on sexual offences and input on investigative processes.
Neil Saunders, Lee’s representative, said she was “obviously disappointed in the outcome” of the one-week hearing. “She maintains that she has not lied to you, sir, or from that meeting on 12 March,” he added.
While under investigation for the failings, Lee quit the force and reportedly set up an OnlyFans account called Officer Naughty.
Snow said that the background to the case was “tragic and appalling”, and added: “These events weigh heavily over this hearing.” He said that the aftermath of Everard’s murder and the pressures on the Met could lead an “honest officer to panic and try to lie their way out”.
Snow told the hearing: “Our conclusion is that the pressure bearing down on Miss Lee continued, leading to her lying in her initial meeting with officers as she was under stress and in a state of panic that left her feeling compelled to lie.
“She then maintained that lie probably still under a great deal of pressure and anxiety. We have some understanding in this situation. A relatively straightforward indecent exposure allegation became an issue of immense pressure.
“What may be seen as an unfair inference of the failures were in some way a failure to prevent the murder of Sarah Everard, which led to her decision to lie and panic under great stress. That does not justify or minimise the lie during investigation.”
Lee was found guilty of misconduct for breaching the force’s standards on duties and responsibilities.
The panel concluded that she failed to secure CCTV and properly log evidence, including the McDonald’s receipts that showed the last four digits of Couzens’ Mastercard and handwritten statements from witnesses.
A manager at a McDonald’s told the hearing that he had shown Lee CCTV footage and told her it could be downloaded on to a USB stick. Reading the panel’s findings, Snow said: “We find it inconceivable that he would not have shown her the CCTV evidence.”
In relation to the evidence, he added: “The panel cannot understand why any officer would have left these documents [the receipts and witness statement] in their locker, with the obvious risk they could be damaged or lost … It demonstrates a sloppiness to her approach and a fundamental failure in relation to attention to detail.”
Lee was accused of failing to escalate the case so officers from Kent police could have been sent to Couzens’ house in Deal. But the panel said it rejected the claim that Lee had grounds to immediately arrest Couzens or “circulate the suspect as wanted”. “We believe she took reasonable action,” Snow said.
