Wayne Couzens was able to murder Sarah Everard because the Met and other forces ignored a succession of “red flags” about his predatory sexual offending that should have stopped him being in the police, a damning report concluded on Thursday.
In the 343-page analysis of the tragedy, Lady Elish Angiolini says the missed opportunities to halt Couzens included the failure to pursue eight incidents of indecent exposure that were reported to police before he killed Ms Everard.
It also blames vetting failures by the Met and a police culture involving “vile behaviour and deeply abusive language” treated as “banter” for the failure to detect his predatory nature - and highlights Couzens’ interest in violent and extreme pornography as further evidence of his deviant sexual activity.
Thursday’s report also reveals a series of further alleged crimes by Couzens including a knifepoint kidnapping in north London in 2015, two rapes in the capital, and an “alleged sexual assault against a child “barely in her teens” before he joined Kent Police as a volunteer officer in 2006.
It warns, however, that despite the catalogue of failings, there is still nothing to stop another violent predator like Couzens from being in the police and calls for extensive reforms to prevent this from happening.
The recommendations include treating indecent exposure incidents with the “seriousness” it merits, including a public information campaign to encourage victims to come forward, and far stricter vetting of officers.
Unveiling her findings on Thursday, Lady Elish said Sarah’s life had been “cut short with the most unimaginable cruelty” and that “failures in investigations into allegations of indecent exposure meant opportunities to disrupt Couzens’ offending and bring his policing career to a halt were missed.”
She added: “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.”
She said that Couzens was a “predatory sex offender and murderer” who had been able “to target vulnerable women while operating in plain sight as an apparently unremarkable officer” but that ”evidence of his alleged sexual offending, his preference for extreme and violent pornography and his unmanaged debts date back nearly 20 years prior to Sarah’s murder.”
Lady Elish added: “Failures of investigation, failures of recruitment processes, and failures of vetting policy and practice are a depressingly familiar refrain in policing, Now is the time for change and I have made 16 recommendations to bring about the necessary changes.
“I would urge all those in authority in every police force in the country to read this report and take immediate action. Sarah’s parents and loved ones live in the perpetual grief and pain of having lost Sarah in this way. Her death, and the public discourse it caused, should galvanise those responsible for policing to make sure something like this can never happen again.”
Couzens joined Kent Police in 2006 before joining the Civil Nuclear Constabulary in 2011 and then the Met in 2018.
The report says that eight incidents of indecent exposure involving were reported to police before Ms Everard’s murder on 3 March 2021 after being kidnapped by Couzens in Clapham under the guise of making an arrest.
One was in 2015 when Couzens, who was already working as a firearms officer with the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, was identied as the owner of a car whose driver had been reported for exposing himself to a member of the public.
Couzens was the only male registered to drive the vehicle but Kent Police closed the case, which today’s report says was a “red flag” and a “missed opportunity” to stop Couzens, without speaking to him.
Another alleged indecent exposure, targeting a lone cyclist on a country lane, was reported to Kent Police in 2020, while four further incidents were reported to the Met, whose investigation “fell below the standards any victim of crime should expect”, only days before Sarah’s murder.
The report says the Met’s failures include his “flawed” initial vetting on joining the force in 2018 when a check of the Police National Database was wrongly recorded as “no trace” when in reality there were entries linking his car to the Kent indecent exposure in 2015 and a reference to him being reported missing from home in 2013.
It says that Scotland Yard also wrongly failed to check the Police National Database again in 2019 when Couzens applied to become a firearms officer when the Kent incident should have again have been revealed.
Lady Elish said that despite these failings, which could have alerted the Met to the potential danger posed by Couzens, the force had made an “astonishing” statement to her inquiry in 2022 that it would still have recruited him even if it had known the information about his history.
Thursday’s report does not state whether this comment was made by the Met before or after the current Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who took over in September 2022, was in charge at Scotland Yard.
Lady Elish also discloses that there were also at least five other alleged incidents of sexual offending by Couzens that were never reported to police and that there “may be even more victims of Couzens’ offending” who have not come forward.
Listing alleged crimes which have been reported since Couzens’ arrest for Sarah’s murder, the report says they include an alleged knife point kidnapping in north London in 1995 and two rapes.
The first, between November 2006 and January 2007, was at a singles event at a bar in east London, while the second allegedly occurred below an unnamed bridge in the capital in October 2019.
The report says that on a “number of occasions” Couzens had also tried to show friends violent and extreme porn with incidents dating back to before he joined the police.
It reveals that he sent unsolicited photos of his penis to two women and “paid female online retailers to masturbate into clothes and send them to him”.
It also highlights debt problems that it says affected Couzens and should have been taken into consideration by police when assessing his suitability to serve.
Responding to Thursday’s findings, Sarah’s family backed Lady Elish’s call for action to prevent further tragedies and said that their “desperate longing to have her with us remains and the loss of Sarah pervades every part of our lives”.
“It is obvious that Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer,” they said. “Warning signs were overlooked throughout his career and opportunities to confront him were missed. We cannot get Sarah back, but positive changes give hope for the future and will be of benefit to others.”
