Images show Sarah Everard with her killer moments before he abducted her, court hears
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.
Couzens sentencing day one – as it happened
Sarah Everard and Wayne Couzens pictured moments before he abducted her in Clapham
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.
In other evidence, the court heard:
• Statements read by Ms Everard’s family, in which they said she had been “fly tipped… like she meant nothing”
• 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
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.
Sarah Everard at a supermarket in Brixton Hill on the day she was abducted
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”.
Couzens’ hire car in Clapham on the night he abducted Sarah Everard
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.
Court sketch of prosecutor Tom Little QC speaking as former Metropolitan Police officer Couzens sits in the dock at the Old Bailey
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”.
Couzens at a branch of B&Q in Dover on 5 March, two days after be abducted Ms Everard
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.
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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.
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.”
After counting more than two million votes cast in the English council elections, a provisional National Share Estimate shows the Conservatives on just 26% of the vote, a 19-point drop compared with the 2019 general election and one of its worst ever performances in any set of local elections.
Labour‘s vote rises from 33% in 2019 to 35% on the current estimate, after more than half the wards have now declared.
The Liberal Democrats are on 16%, an increase of five percentage points on the 2019 election. This follows a familiar pattern where the party does better in council elections than in parliamentary elections.
Local election results: Relief for Sunak in key mayoral race
Other parties, such as the Greens, Reform, and independents, are projected to be on 22%.
This figure assumes also that votes for the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales, places where no local elections took place, are unchanged from the previous election. The same condition applies to the 18 seats in Northern Ireland.
Assuming these changes in vote share occur uniformly across each of the newly drawn parliamentary constituencies in place for the next general election, Labour wins 294 seats and would overtake the Conservatives – but falls 32 seats short of gaining an overall majority.
The Conservatives fall from 372 seats on the new boundaries to just 242 seats, a projected loss of 130 seats. The Liberal Democrats rise from eight to 38 seats.
As is usual in such projections, there are individual constituencies where the count of local votes shows a party “winning” a constituency when the uniform swing suggests otherwise.
Two such examples are Aldershot and Plymouth Moor View, both of which fall to Labour when we aggregate local votes in wards lying within those constituencies.
Employing the same procedure, however, Labour’s seat tally suffers when local votes in constituencies such as Blackburn and Oldham West were “won” by independents when actual votes are counted.
Labour easily retains these constituencies when uniform swing is considered.
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The large vote for others highlights a growing tendency in local elections for some voters to support a range of smaller parties.
This year that tendency is exaggerated still further with the swing away from Labour towards independents in certain parts of the country.
UK
UK plans to ramp up weapons production for Ukraine and Western defence as Lord Cameron reveals envoy will oversee ‘national priority’
The UK will appoint a new envoy to oversee a plan to ramp up the production of weapons and ammunition, which is now a “national priority”, the foreign secretary has revealed.
Lord Cameron, speaking on a visit to Ukraine, also underlined the importance of supporting the Ukrainian war effort against Russia, warning that the world was at an “absolutely critical tipping point” and Kyiv must prevail or else Europe faced a “very dangerous future”.
However, he cautioned against an idea from French President Emmanuel Macron to consider sending NATO troops to Ukraine to join the fight if Russia’s Vladimir Putin achieves a breakthrough, saying that such a move would be a “dangerous escalation”.
“I don’t think it is right to have NATO soldiers killing Russian soldiers,” the foreign secretary said in an interview in the western city of Lviv on Friday, having met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top ministers in Kyiv on Thursday.
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Moscow rages over Cameron remarks
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, shakes hands with Lord Cameron this week. Pic: Ukrainian Presidential Press Office/AP
Lord Cameron made the two-day trip to reaffirm the UK’s commitment to Ukraine, which most recently includes a promise to transfer more of the British military’s own stockpiles of weapons, including precision-guided bombs and air defence missiles.
The UK has also promised at least £3bn worth of military assistance annually.
But Western nations are failing to deliver munitions to Ukraine’s frontline as quickly as Russia is rearming its military, with Russian troops gaining ground in the east in recent months.
President Putin put his economy on a war footing when he launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 – something NATO allies are only slowly starting to move towards.
Rishi Sunak said last week he would increase UK defence spending to 2.5% of national income by 2030 – claiming this equated to an additional £75bn in investment.
He also said he was putting the UK defence industry on a “war footing” and added £10bn of new funding would be dedicated to domestic munitions production over the next decade.
Read more:
UK cities ‘increasingly vulnerable’ to attacks from the air
Is the UK preparing properly amid rising risk of war?
Lord Cameron met Lviv’s mayor during his visit to Ukraine
‘We need to build up our own stocks’
Asked how Britain could force defence companies like BAE Systems, Thales and Babcock – that have to answer to their shareholders, not the government – to increase production lines at the required rate and scale without some kind of legislation to force them to act, Lord Cameron revealed the plan for a new envoy for defence production.
“There is a specific munitions strategy of £10bn which will do exactly what you are talking about – the ramping up of production,” he said.
“But crucially I think we can go further than that in terms of a specific defence envoy with the ability from the prime minister to go out and make sure we are doing those muti-year deals with the defence suppliers because we need not only to provide more weapons to Ukraine, we need to build up our own stocks.
“So this is very important, it is a national priority.
“The prime minister is giving the lead and I think the industry will respond.”
Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News
Pushed on whether the new envoy – whose identity has not yet been revealed – would be the modern-day equivalent of someone like Lord Beaverbrook, who was tasked with expanding aircraft production during the Second World War, Lord Cameron said: “It is the 21st century so there won’t be a Lord Beaverbrook.”
But he signalled that the envoy’s ability to approach industry with a commitment to fund multi-year contracts for munitions would be key – and could also drive down cost.
“It is possible to go to the defence contractors and say to them: ‘You are not going to get the price you might have hoped for year after year after year because we are going to make a contract with you over the coming years to make sure we replenish our ammunition, our artillery, our long rage fires, our missiles’ – those crucial things vital for Ukraine but also vital for our own defence.”
As for why the government needed to appoint a specific envoy to this role, Lord Cameron said: “You need I think to have that direct line to the prime minister to make sure we are making this the national priority it clearly is.”
Cameron warns of ‘dangerous future’
Turning to the war in Ukraine, the foreign secretary said Europe faced “two futures” – one in which Ukrainian forces, backed by Western weapons, are able to push out the Russian invaders and secure what he called a “just peace”.
“That is a footing on which you can see great security and prosperity for us and for Europe,” he said.
But he warned: “A future in which Putin is successful and Ukraine is pushed back is I think a very dangerous future.”
Nations such as Moldova and even the NATO states of the Baltics would be worried that President Putin might turn his attention towards them next, Lord Cameron said.
In addition, the authoritarian regimes in Iran and China would be watching closely.
“I think we are at an absolutely crucial tipping point in global affairs,” Lord Cameron added.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has renewed his demand for Rishi Sunak to go to the polls after the prime minister suffered a by-election drubbing and bruising council losses across England.
But while Mr Sunak said the the grim early results were “disappointing” for the Conservatives, he insisted he was “focused completely on the job at hand” and is certain to seize on the party holding the Tees Valley mayoralty.
Sky News elections analyst Professor Michael Thrasher has warned the Conservatives could be on course for one of their worst-ever performances.
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The results as they come in
Pic: PA
Buoyed by council gains in key battleground areas like Hartlepool, Rushmoor in Hampshire, Redditch in the West Midlands and Thurrock in Essex, Sir Keir declared the “seismic win” for Labour in the Blackpool South by-election “a direct message to the prime minister”.
Highlighting the swing of 26.33% from the Tories in the Lancashire seat, the opposition leader told Sky News: “There’s no denying the mood of the country now is for change. And I think it’s for the prime minister to allow the country to express that change now in a general election.”
But speaking at a military base in North Yorkshire, Mr Sunak said: “Obviously it’s disappointing to lose good, hard-working Conservative councillors and I’m grateful to them for all their service in local government, keeping council tax low and delivering services for local people.”
He also stressed there were “lots of results to come”.
One of those was the Tees Valley mayoral contest, which saw Tory incumbent Ben Houchen re-elected in the face of a concerted Labour challenge.
The Conservative peer held the role with the a majority of 18,789 votes.
Speaking to Sky News earlier, Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden said it had been a “tough night”, but insisted that “when we’re facing those tough challenges we’ve got the right man for the job”.
Read more:
The winners and losers
Charts tell story of Conservative collapse
Who is Labour’s new MP in Blackpool South?
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Votes for Reform UK ‘helping Labour’
On the potential threat of Conservative MPs choosing to oust Mr Sunak, Mr Holden added: “Parliamentary colleagues need to look at this and see… and wait through the weekend as well.”
Mr Holden sought to highlight local issues at play, insisting the Blackpool South by-election took place in “particularly difficult” circumstances following the resignation of former Tory MP Scott Benton after a lobbying scandal.
Key results include:
- Labour won Rushmoor in Hampshire for the first time
- The party also claimed the council in general election bellwether Redditch
- Labour won Hartlepool council, regaining ground after a Westminster by-election disaster there in 2021
- Labour also won Thurrock, one of its top targets
- The Tories clung on by a single seat in Harlow, Essex – a council targeted by Sir Keir on the eve of polling
- Conservatives lost control of North East Lincolnshire
- Labour replace the Tories as the largest party on Peterborough Council
- Labour lost control in Oldham, which has a large Muslim population, amid anger over Labour’s stance on Gaza
- In Cumbria, a Labour police and crime commissioner was elected, at the expense of the Tories
- Labour also beat the Conservatives in the police and crime commissioner race in Avon and Somerset
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