Former police officer who murdered Sarah Everard in case that shocked UK to be sentenced

Tolga Akmen AFP via Getty Images People place floral tributes to Sarah Everard at London’s Clapham Common after her murder.

LONDON â€" Wayne Couzens, the Metropolitan Police officer who pleaded guilty to kidnapping, raping and murdering Sarah Everard, in a case that sparked a national outcry, is set to appear at London’s Old Bailey on Wednesday for a hearing to determine whether he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, disappeared on the night of March 3, after leaving a friend’s house in Battersea, south London. Her body was found a week later in a wooded area about 50 miles away, near land owned by Couzens. An autopsy determined the cause of death to be “compression of the neck.”

Couzens, 48, was fired from the police force’s elite Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection squad after his guilty pleas, but there was a heated public debate about how someone who had been granted high security clearances and entrusted with a gun could have committed such a crime.

[Women in U.K. demand change after police officer is questioned on suspicion of killing a woman walking home]

Murder in Britain carries a mandatory life sentence, but that doesn’t mean life behind bars. Judge Adrian Fulford will decide the minimum time Couzens must serve before being eligible for parole. The judge could also sentence Couzens to a “whole life order,” making him ineligible for release.

Though Everard’s murder was extraordinary, many people in Britain were struck by the fact that she had been just walking home and ended up dead.

Thousands of women turned to social media to share experiences of feeling unsafe as they went about their days. They swapped stories of how they modified their behavior when heading home at night: walking with keys facing out, changing into athletic shoes in case running became necessary; taking the long way back because it was well-lit; crossing the road when heavy footsteps approached from behind.

Alongside a shared understanding came outrage that such detailed calculations were necessary.

Experts working in the area of violence against women said they hadn’t seen such an outpouring in decades. Betsy Stanko, a criminologist and visiting professor at University College London, described the moment as “an explosion of anger” across the country that became “indicative of the whole way women felt devalued.”

In the wake of Everard’s murder, the British government decided to reopen a consultation on violence against women that had initially received 15,000 responses. Another 180,000 people quickly weighed in.

A London vigil for Everard also attracted international attention, with police criticized for their handling of the event. England was in a strict coronavirus lockdown at the time, and officials had urged people not to attend. Thousands showed up anyway, and as officers sought to disperse the crowd, an image of a woman being pinned to the ground went viral. A watchdog later concluded that the police did not act in a heavy-handed manner, but the watchdog acknowledged it was a public relations disaster.

During tense scenes at the vigil, mourners could be heard shouting at the police: “arrest your own.”

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