A police officer used COVID lockdown regulations to falsely arrest Sarah Everard before he kidnapped, raped and strangled her and then burned her body, a court has heard.
Wayne Couzens, 48, used handcuffs and his Metropolitan Police-issue warrant card to snatch his victim as she walked home from a friend’s house in Clapham, south London, on the evening of 3 March.
Images seen at the Old Bailey showed Ms Everard talking to her killer moments before he abducted her.
Image: Sarah Everard and Wayne Couzens pictured moments before he abducted her in Clapham
Image: Wayne Couzens and Sarah Everard before she was kidnapped, as he appears to hold something out to her
The firearms officer, who had finished a 12-hour shift at the US Embassy that morning, drove to a remote rural area northwest of Dover in Kent, where he parked up and raped Ms Everard.
The 33-year-old marketing executive, who lived in Brixton, south London, was strangled with Couzens’ police belt by 2.30am the following morning.
Couzens then burned her body in a refrigerator in an area of woodland he owned near Ashford, Kent, before dumping the remains in a nearby pond.
Days later, amid extensive publicity about Ms Everard’s disappearance, Couzens took his wife and children on a day out to the woods, allowing the youngsters to play close by.
Couzens was at the Old Bailey for a two-day sentencing hearing.
• Evidence including a fragment of a SIM card and a blood stain in Couzens’ car linked him to the crimes
• The prosecution argued that the crime was so serious a whole life sentence should be considered
Image: Sarah’s mum told the court her daughter wanted to marry and have children
Ms Everard’s family told the court about the “unbearable” suffering they have been through.
Her mother, Susan, said she was “repulsed” by Couzens and “outraged that he masqueraded as a policeman”, adding that Sarah had wanted to get married and have children.
Her father, Jeremy, said his daughter’s murder is on his mind “all the time”, while her sister Katie broke down in tears and said Couzens had “fly-tipped” Sarah “like she meant nothing”.
The crime involved “significant” planning and Ms Everard was alive for hours before being raped and murdered, prosecutor Tom Little QC said.
Image: Sarah Everard at a supermarket in Brixton Hill on the day she was abducted
Image: Sarah leaving the branch of Sainsbury’s at 6pm
The circumstances of the murder are so exceptional that it could warrant a whole life sentence, he added. Couzens, who was sacked by the Metropolitan Police after admitting murdering Ms Everard, is due to discover his jail sentence on Thursday.
Speaking during the first day of a two-day sentencing hearing, Mr Little said Couzens took his wife and two children on a family trip to Hoads Wood on 7 March, where only days earlier he had set fire to Ms Everard’s body.
En route, he withdrew cash from the same service station he had been to shortly after raping and murdering his victim, the court heard.
Mr Little said he “took his family on a family trip to the very woods where days earlier he had left Sarah Everard’s body, then returned to burn it and then returned again to move it and hide it”.
Image: Couzens’ hire car in Clapham on the night he abducted Sarah Everard
Image: Couzens pleaded guilty to the murder of Sarah Everard
Couzens allowed his children to play in “relatively close proximity to where Ms Everard’s body had been dumped in the pond”, he added.
He was arrested on 9 March and Ms Everard’s body was found the following a day – a week after she went missing.
Opening the hearing, Mr Little said Couzens’ crimes could be summarised in five words: “Deception, kidnap, rape, strangulation, fire.”
Ms Everard had had dinner with a friend in Clapham Junction and was on her way home to Brixton when she was “arrested” by Couzens during the third coronavirus lockdown.
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‘Sarah Everard was handcuffed before abduction’
Couzens, then a serving diplomatic protection officer, handcuffed her at about 9.34pm after showing her his warrant card, the court heard.
Mr Little said Couzens was familiar with coronavirus regulations and may have used lockdown rules to falsely detain Ms Everard.
She was described by a former long-term boyfriend as “extremely intelligent, savvy and streetwise” and “not a gullible person” who he could envisage getting into a car with a stranger “unless by force or manipulation”.
Couzens was said to be wearing his police belt with handcuffs and a rectangular black pouch, similar to a pepper spray holder, when he confronted Ms Everard.
He put her in the back of a Vauxhall Astra – hired using his own personal details and bank card – at around 9.37pm.
The married father-of-two set off for Kent, 80 miles away, a minute later. At around 11.30pm, Ms Everard was transferred from the hire car to Couzens’ own Seat car, which was left in a non-residential area of Dover.
Image: Court sketch of prosecutor Tom Little QC speaking as former Metropolitan Police officer Couzens sits in the dock at the Old Bailey
Image: Sarah Everard’s body was found in a woodland in Ashford, Kent – metres from land owned by Couzens
Couzens then drove to a remote rural area northwest of Dover where he parked up and raped Ms Everard, the court was told.
The Seat was picked up on an ANPR camera on a road in the town at 2.31am. “It is by this point that Sarah Everard is most likely to have been murdered,” Mr Little said.
The moment Couzens confronted Ms Everard in south London was caught on security footage and witnessed by a couple travelling in a car.
Ms Everard was a mile from home when cameras from two buses, a refuse lorry and a marked police car caught footage of Couzens talking to her by the car, which was parked on the pavement with its hazard lights on and doors open.
The female passenger in the other vehicle said she saw Couzens and Ms Everard standing on the pavement. She watched as Ms Everard was handcuffed, Mr Little told the court.
“Sarah Everard was compliant, with her head down and did not appear to be arguing,” he said.
Mr Little added that the female passenger believed she was witnessing an undercover police officer arresting a woman whom she assumed “must have done something wrong”.
Image: Couzens at a branch of B&Q in Dover on 5 March, two days after be abducted Ms Everard
Image: Police outside Couzens’ home in Freemens Way in Deal, Kent
She remarked to her husband that she had seen “a woman being handcuffed” when “they were in fact witnessing the kidnapping of Sarah Everard”, Mr Little said.
The next day, 4 March, Couzens took Ms Everard’s mobile phone and threw it into a river in Sandwich, Kent. A broken fragment of an EE sim card from the phone was later found in his Seat, the court heard.
In addition, a blood stain was found on a rear passenger seat which matched Ms Everard’s DNA, the court heard.
Semen which matched Couzens’ DNA was also found on the back seat, the hearing was told.
Couzens, who the court heard was thousands of pounds in debt, wiped his phone just minutes before he was arrested at his home in Deal on 9 March.
In a video shown at the Old Bailey, Couzens was seen sitting on his sofa, with his hands in cuffs, being quizzed by police.
An officer repeatedly asked if Couzens knew where Ms Everard was, saying her “family and friends are worried about her”.
Couzens, who offered no resistance, initially denied knowing her, claiming he only knew of her disappearance from watching the news.
He then told detectives he was “in financial s***” and that he had been “leant on” by a gang to pick up girls after he tried to “rip off” a sex worker he had booked online.
The following day, a week after Ms Everard disappeared, her body was found in a stream in Ashford, Kent, just metres from land owned by Couzens.
Fragments of her clothing were found in nearby woodland, where her body had previously been burnt.
Image: Sarah’s sister said she was the ‘very best person’
Mr Little said that while Couzens was in the wood he must have “moved Sarah Everard’s heavily burnt body from where he had set fire to it, to the pond where she was subsequently found” using bags he bought from B&Q on 5 March.
In July, Couzens pleaded guilty to Ms Everard’s murder, kidnap and rape via video link from jail.
Couzens told a psychiatrist he strangled Ms Everard with his police belt, which tallied with the conclusions of a post-mortem examination which found she died from compression of the neck.
While in custody, he deliberately hit his head on the toilet bowl in his cell, suffering a cut, shortly before he was about to be interviewed, the court heard.
An ambulance was called and he was taken to hospital for treatment, before being placed under constant supervision after returning to the police station.
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Couzens ‘should never have been near a uniform’
The court heard how Couzens would wear his police belt and handcuffs while off duty and had a profile on dating site Match.com in which he gave various false details about himself. He was also in contact with an escort through an escort service.
The police watchdog has received a string of referrals relating to the Couzens case, with 12 police officers being investigated.
A senior investigator on the Sarah Everard case, former DCI Simon Harding, told Sky News that police “do not view” Couzens as a fellow officer and that he “should never have been near a uniform”.
Speaking outside the Old Bailey in July, Met Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said she was “very sorry” for the loss, pain and suffering of the Everard family.
She said: “All of us in the Met are sickened, angered and devastated by this man’s truly dreadful crimes. Everyone in policing feels betrayed.”
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Sarah Everard was ‘handcuffed and powerless’
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said it was looking at whether the Met failed to investigate two allegations of indecent exposure relating to Couzens in February, just days before the killing.
Kent Police is also being investigated over its response to a third allegation of indecent exposure dating back to 2015.
Ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, a spokesperson from the Metropolitan Police said: “We are sickened, angered and devastated by this man’s crimes which betray everything we stand for.
“Our thoughts are with Sarah’s family and her many friends. It is not possible for us to imagine what they are going through.
“We recognise his actions raise many questions and concerns but we will not be commenting further until the hearing is complete.”
It is “shameful” that black boys growing up in London are “far more likely” to die than white boys, Metropolitan Police chief Sir Mark Rowley has told Sky News.
In a wide-ranging interview with Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, the commissioner saidthat relations with minority communities are “difficult for us”, while also speaking about the state of the justice system and the size of the police force.
Sir Mark, who came out of retirement to become head of the UK’s largest police force in 2022, said: “We can’t pretend otherwise that we’ve got a history between policing and black communities where policing has got a lot wrong.
“And we get a lot more right today, but we do still make mistakes. That’s not in doubt. I’m being as relentless in that as it can be.”
He said the “vast majority” of the force are “good people”.
However, he added: “But that legacy, combined with the tragedy that some of this crime falls most heavily in black communities, that creates a real problem because the legacy creates concern.”
Sir Mark, who also leads the UK’s counter-terrorism policing, said black boys growing up in London “are far more likely to be dead by the time they’re 18” than white boys.
“That’s, I think, shameful for the city,” he admitted.
“The challenge for us is, as we reach in to tackle those issues, that confrontation that comes from that reaching in, whether it’s stop and search on the streets or the sort of operations you seek.
“The danger is that’s landing in an environment with less trust.
“And that makes it even harder. But the people who win out of that [are] all of the criminals.”
Image: Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley
The commissioner added: “I’m so determined to find a way to get past this because if policing in black communities can find a way to confront these issues, together we can give black boys growing up in London equal life chances to white boys, which is not what we’re seeing at the moment.
“And it’s not simply about policing, is it?”
Sir Mark said: “I think black boys are several times more likely to be excluded from school, for example, than white boys.
“And there are multiple issues layered on top of each other that feed into disproportionality.”
‘We’re stretched, but there’s hope and determination’
Sir Mark said the Met is a “stretched service” but people who call 999 can expect an officer to attend.
“If you are in the middle of a crisis and something awful is happening and you dial 999, officers will get there really quickly,” Sir Mark said.
“I don’t pretend we’re not a stretched service.
“We are smaller than I think we ought to be, but I don’t want to give a sort of message of a lack of hope or a lack of determination.”
“I’ve seen the mayor and the home secretary fighting hard for police resourcing,” he added.
“It’s not what I’d want it to be, but it’s better than it might be without their efforts.”
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0:39
How police tracked and chased suspected phone thief
‘Close to broken’ justice system facing ‘awful’ delays
Sir Mark said the criminal justice system was “close to broken” and can be “frustrating” for police officers.
“The thing that is frustrating is that the system – and no system can be perfect – but when the system hasn’t managed to turn that person’s life around and get them on the straight and narrow, and it just becomes a revolving door,” he said.
“When that happens, of course that’s frustrating for officers.
“So the more successful prisons and probation can be in terms of getting people onto a law-abiding life from the path they’re on, the better.
“But that is a real challenge. I mean, we’re talking just after Sir Brian Leveson put his report out about the close-to-broken criminal justice system.
“And it’s absolutely vital that those repairs and reforms that he’s talking about happen really quickly, because the system is now so stressed.”
Giving an example, the police commissioner went on: “We’ve got Snaresbrook [Crown Court] in London – it’s now got more than 100 cases listed for 2029.”
Sir Mark asked Trevor Phillips to imagine he had been the victim of a crime, saying: “We’ve caught the person, we’ve charged him, ‘great news, Mr Phillips, we’ve got him charged, they’re going to court’.
“And then a few weeks later, I see the trial’s listed for 2029. That doesn’t feel great, does it?”
Asked about the fact that suspects could still be on the streets for years before going to trial, Sir Mark conceded it’s “pretty awful”.
He added: “If it’s someone on bail, who might have stolen your phone or whatever, and they’re going in for a criminal court trial, that could be four years away. And that’s pretty unacceptable, isn’t it?”
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She pinned the primary blame for the Met’s culture on its past leadership and found stop and search and the use of force against black people was excessive.
At the time, Sir Mark, who had been commissioner for six months when the report was published, said he would not use the labels of institutionally racist, institutionally misogynistic and institutionally homophobic, which Baroness Casey insisted the Met deserved.
However, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who helped hire Sir Mark – and could fire him – made it clear the commissioner agreed with Baroness Casey’s verdict.
A few months after the report, Sir Mark launched a two-year £366m plan to overhaul the Met, including increased emphasis on neighbourhood policing to rebuild public trust and plans to recruit 500 more community support officers and an extra 565 people to work with teams investigating domestic violence, sexual offences and child sexual abuse and exploitation.
A leading NHS hospital has warned measles is on the rise among children in the UK, after treating 17 cases since June.
Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool said it is “concerned” about the increasing number of children and young people who are contracting the highly contagious virus.
It said the cases it has treated since June were for effects and complications of the disease, which, in rare cases, can be fatal if left untreated.
“We are concerned about the increasing number of children and young people who are contracting measles. Measles is a highly contagious viral illness which can cause children to be seriously unwell, requiring hospital treatment, and in rare cases, death,” the hospital said in a statement to Sky News.
In a separate open letter to parents and carers in Merseyside earlier this month, Alder Hey, along with the UK Health and Security Agency (UKHSA) and directors of Public Health for Liverpool, Sefton and Knowsley, warned the increase in measles in the region could be down to fewer people getting vaccinated.
The letter read: “We are seeing more cases of measles in our children and young people because fewer people are having the MMR vaccine, which protects against measles and two other viruses called mumps and rubella.
“Children in hospital, who are very poorly for another reason, are at higher risk of catching the virus.”
What are the symptoms of measles?
The first symptoms of measles include:
• A high temperature
• A runny or blocked nose
• Sneezing
• A cough
• Red, sore or watery eyes
Cold-like symptoms are followed a few days later by a rash, which starts on the face and behind the ears, before it spreads.
The spots are usually raised and can join together to form blotchy patches which are not usually itchy.
Some people may get small spots in their mouth too.
What should you do if you think your child has measles?
Ask for an urgent GP appointment or call 111 if you think your child has measles.
If your child has been vaccinated, it is very unlikely they have measles.
You should not go to the doctor without calling ahead, as measles is very infectious.
If your child is diagnosed with measles by a doctor, make sure they avoid close contact with babies and anyone who is pregnant or has a weakened immune system.
Image: The skin of a patient after three days of measles infection
It comes after a Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) report released earlier this month determined that uptake of vaccines in the UK has stalled over the last decade and is, in many cases, declining.
It said none of the routine childhood vaccinations have met the 95% coverage target since 2021, putting youngsters at risk of measles, meningitis and whooping cough.
The MMR vaccine has been available through the NHS for years. Two doses gives lifelong protection against measles, mumps and rubella.
Image: Two doses of the MMR vaccine give lifelong protection against measles, mumps and rubella. Pic: iStock
According to the latest NHS data, Liverpool was one of the cities outside London with the lowest uptake of the MMR vaccination in 2023-2024.
By the time children were five years old, 86.5% had been give one dose, decreasing to 73.4% for a second dose.
The RCPCH report put the nationwide decline down to fears over vaccinations, as well as families having trouble booking appointments and a lack of continuous care in the NHS, with many seeing a different GP on each visit.
In the US, measles cases are at their highest in more than three decades.
Cases reached 1,288 on Wednesday this week, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, with 14 states battling active outbreaks.
The largest outbreak started five months ago in communities in West Texas, where vaccination uptake is low. Since then, three people have died – including two children in Texas and an adult in New Mexico – with dozens more in hospital.
Steve Barton is angry, and he has every right to be.
The 68-year-old retired engineer stares at his medical notes that, he says, expose in black and white the moment his life changed forever.
“I have somehow missed… due to my mistake,” a doctor writes in one of the notes, after it became apparent that Mr Barton had not been urgently referred to specialists over what later became an aggressive form of throat cancer.
Steve now has a prosthetic voice box and is one of many British patients fighting medical negligence claims after being misdiagnosed.
NHS officials in Scotland are dealing with thousands of cases annually. Meanwhile, Westminster’s Public Affairs Committee (PAC) recently disclosed England’s Department of Health and Social Care has set aside £58.2bn to settle clinical lawsuits arising before 2024.
Mr Barton, who lives in Alloa near Stirling, repeatedly contacted his doctors after he began struggling with his breathing, speaking and swallowing. His concerns were recorded by the NHS as sinus issues.
As panic grew and his voice became weaker, Mr Barton paid to see a private consultant who revealed the devastating news that a massive tumour had grown on his larynx and required part of his throat to be removed immediately.
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“I am angry, I am upset, I don’t want anyone else to go through this,” Mr Barton told Sky News.
“There were at least four, possibly five, conversations on the phone. He [the doctor] said to me that it sounds like I’ve got reflux.”
‘He was palmed off’
Mr Barton is now unable to work and cannot shower by himself because if water enters the hole in his neck, he could drown.
And a windy day can cause a debilitating coughing fit if a gust catches his prosthetic voice box.
Image: Steve Barton is one of thousands battling medical negligence cases
Asked if he believes this was avoidable, Mr Barton replied: “Absolutely. 100%.”
His wife, Heather, told Sky News: “He hates this. You see him crying. It breaks my heart. It’s been hard emotionally.”
She added: “Everybody knows their own body. He was palmed off and the consequence is a neck dissection. It [life] changed overnight.”
Legal battle over compensation
The Barton family have been locked in a legal battle over their ordeal with the Medical and Dental Defence Union Scotland (MDDUS) – a body which indemnifies GPs.
It has not admitted formal liability in this case but has agreed to settle financial compensation to Mr Barton.
Izabela Wosiak, a solicitor from Irwin Mitchell who represents the Bartons, said: “Cases like Steve’s are complex and usually quite difficult, but solicitors have accepted there was no defence to this case.
“They have arranged to make an interim payment; however we are still in the process of negotiating final settlement.”
A MDDUS spokeswoman refused to comment while talks are being finalised.
What is the scale of medical negligence in Britain?
The NHS in Scotland is under the devolved control of the Scottish government.
Figures suggest there were almost 14,000 clinical negligence claims and incidents in 2023/24, an increase on the previous year.
It comes as PAC warned that the total liabilities in England’s health service has hit £58.2bn.
PAC chair Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP told Sky News: “I extend my sympathies to Steve and his family. Unfortunately, he is not alone.
“Some are really heart-wrenching tales. Every single claim somebody is involved, someone has been in some way injured, so this is a terrible thing.
“We are going to be working on how we can make the whole system less litigious and get compensation paid out quickly because if the state does harm to somebody, the least they could do is to compensate them as quickly as possible.”
Paul Whiteing, the chief executive of patient safety charity Action Against Medical Accidents, told Sky News: “The NHS itself last year [in England] paid out just over £5bn in compensational set aside money for compensation that it would need to pay out.
“It’s a huge cost and of course that doesn’t speak to the cost to every individual, every family, every person who is impacted by the consequences of some form of medical accident and the trauma that can go with that.”