London police officer falsely detained Sarah Everard over covid restrictions before murdering her say prosecutors

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

LONDON â€" Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens accused Sarah Everard of breaking coronavirus restrictions and falsely arrested her before taking her away to rape and murder her, a London court heard on Wednesday.

In a case that sparked a national outcry, 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 burned 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 â€" which included work at the U.S. Embassy â€" 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.

Prosecutors said Couzens used his police identification and knowledge about covid rules to deceive Everard. They showed surveillance-camera footage of Couzens holding out his hand toward Everard and said an eyewitness saw Couzens, who had a rental car parked nearby, handcuffing her.

“She was detained by fraud,” prosecutor Tom Little said. Couzens used “his warrant card and handcuffs as well as his other police issue equipment to effect a false arrest,” he said.

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

Couzens worked a 12-hour overnight shift at the U.S. Embassy in south London before he kidnapped Everard. He told colleagues he was thinking of leaving the police over a pay dispute and that he might take sick leave over stress.

His shift ended at 7 a.m., but later that evening he returned to London, “hunting for a lone young female to kidnap and rape,” the prosecution said.

That woman was Everard. The kidnapping was quick. He detained her at 9:34 p.m., and three minutes later they were headed to Dover.

“Having handcuffed her to the rear, she would not have been able to undo the seat belt that the defendant must have placed over her,” Little said. At some point, in the course of the long journey that did not involve stopping at any police station, “Sarah Everard must have realized her fate.”

Little told the court that Couzens burned her body and possessions in a refrigerator after murdering her. “He then moved her body in green bags that he had purchased specifically for that task to a pond deeper into the woods but which was only about 130 meters from his plot.”

On Wednesday, Couzens was in court, with his head bowed, as were Everard’s family members.

Little noted that “she was just walking home” became a hashtag that flooded social media after her death. He said that it was impossible to summarize what happened to her in five words, but if he had to, “then it would be more appropriate to do so as deception, kidnap, rape, strangulation, fire.”

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.

Tolga Akmen

AFP/Getty Images

Demonstrators hold placards as they await the sentencing of British police officer Wayne Couzens for the murder of Sarah Everard, outside the Old Bailey court in London on Sept. 29, 2021.

In the wake of her killing, 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 had not 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.”

After 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, and police were 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. As officers sought to disperse the crowd, an image of a woman being pinned to the ground went viral. A watchdog group 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!”

Ahead of the hearing on Wednesday, the Metropolitan Police tweeted: “We’re sickened, angered & devastated by his crimes. They betray everything we stand for.”

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