When a police officer stopped Sarah Everard, a young woman who was walking home in London, and arrested her for breaching national lockdown guidelines in March, she did not argue, instead allowing herself to be handcuffed and getting into the officer’s car. Her charred remains were found a week later in a wood nearly 60 miles away.
These details were heard for the first time yesterday during the sentencing hearing for the officer, Wayne Couzens, who pleaded guilty to her killing earlier this year. The crime horrified Britain, striking a raw nerve with women accustomed to the fear of male violence and in turn galvanizing a national movement demanding better protections.
Couzens had gone hunting for a lone young woman and had used his official police credentials, equipment and training to carry out the crime, a prosecutor said. He had worked on Covid patrols a few months earlier, giving him an understanding of the protocols regarding potential lockdown breaches.
Response: Rights groups reacted with outrage to the new information and called for greater accountability from London’s Metropolitan Police force. Many have criticized the failure by the police to investigate accusations of other sexual offenses by Couzens before Everard’s murder, including reports that he exposed himself in public days before the attack.
New York Times