Wayne Couzens ‘should never have been a police officer', shocking report finds

In recent times, several high-profile cases of lone women and lone male police officers have seen a rise in distrust of the police.

In March 2021, Sarah Everard was kidnapped and murdered by former Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens who used his police-issued warrant card to stage a fake arrest and kidnap the 33-year-old marketing executive.

Couzens received a whole life sentence for the murder of Everard and an independent report later found that three separate police forces "could and should" have stopped him.

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Police officers will be automatically suspended in future if charged with certain criminal offences, the home secretary has said.

James Cleverly said action is being taken to address public confidence in the police, telling the Commons: “Anyone who is not fit to wear the uniform for whatever reason must be removed from policing and every effort must be made to ensure that similar people never join.”

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Labour MP Jess Phillips said: “To say that we are doing everything possible in flagging intelligence is just not true.

“Currently if you are found to have raped your wife or raped one of your children or abused your children, in a family court in this country, found by a British court, no police force in the country would be entitled to have that information when they were doing the vetting.

“Will he commit today that that will all be completely and utterly available and that is somebody found to have raped or have child abused in a British court, that when they want to become a police officer or a social worker, that that information will be available.

Home secretary James Cleverly replied: “(Phillips) raises an incredibly important point about making sure that where there have been offences that they are taken into consideration with regard to the vetting and that is part of the set of reforms that we will be looking at driving through.

“She makes the point about numbers of officers and budgets, and I’m not convinced that that is necessarily the most useful metric of the seriousness with which we take things.

He added: “Without a fundamental shift in philosophy, without a fundamental shift in attitude (increased funding) will not have the effect that she and I both desire.”

Sarah Everard’s family have hit out at the missed opportunities police had to confront her killer Wayne Couzens.

The findings of an inquiry uncovered a series of failures in recruitment and vetting processes that meant Couzens was able to remain a police officer despite an accusation of a sex offence.

The former Metropolitan Police officer was alleged to have committed a serious sexual assault against a child before joining the police in 2002.

In a statement, Miss Everard’s mother Sue, father Jeremy and siblings Katie and James said they had found hope that the “significant findings” announced in the first part of the Angiolini Inquiry could lead to changes to keep other women safe.

“We believe that Sarah died because he was a police officer – she would never have got into a stranger’s car,” they said.

Read the full story from The Independent.

Campaigners have said Sarah Everard’s “devastating” murder was “entirely preventable”, as police chiefs vowed to do better in the wake of the Angiolini Inquiry.

Andrea Simon, director of the End Violence Against Women coalition (EVAW), called on the Government and the police to take urgent action to address the inquiry’s findings.

Inquiry chairwoman Lady Elish Angiolini warned that without a radical overhaul of policing practices and culture, there is “nothing to stop another Couzens operating in plain sight”.

Read the full story from PA.

The standards of Metropolitan Police officers must not be sacrificed to hit recruitment targets, Home Secretary James Cleverly has told MPs.

Speaking in the Commons, Cleverly said: “There absolutely must not be no sacrifice of quality, of vetting, to try and hit the recruitment targets that we have made clear we expect the Metropolitan Police to hit.

“We want the Metropolitan Police to be a well-recruited force.”

His comments came in response to Conservative MP Bob Blackman (Harrow East), who said: “The overwhelming number of Metropolitan Police officers are brave individuals who put their lives on the line frequently to protect all of us… those individuals want to see these bad apples routed out and indeed never coming in to the police service in the first place.”

He added: “We have got to make sure that standards don’t slip in terms of recruitment, they should be enforced.”

Convicted rapists are not currently flagged in police vetting procedures, Labour MP Jess Phillips has said.

The Birmingham Yardley MP told the Commons: “I would like to send my love to Sarah Everard and also to the families of the 340 women in this country who have been killed since the day that Sarah Everard was.

“The home secretary there said that he takes the strategic policing requirement is for to make it so that this issue is as important as terrorism, so if he could tell the House which police force in the country that has a counter-terror unit has the same number of officers in that unit as they have specialists in violence against women and girls.

“If he could answer the question of me about how his department spent £50 million last year on 6,700 prevent referrals to prevent people from ending up in terrorism and we spent £18 million on 898,000 police reports of domestic abuse?

“So on one side you’ve got 6,000, on one side you’ve got nearly a million, the Home Office spends £8 million on domestic violence perpetrators, £50 million on diverting terrorist perpetrators, so we’re taking it as seriously?”

The home secretary has said the policing for the vigil held to remember Sarah Everard was “just awful”.

Shadow minister Florence Eshalomi raised the matter of the vigil (which was held during lockdown and resulted in several arrests) in the Commons, saying: “I think about the events back in March 2021 and taking people back to the vigil that was organised in Clapham Common… and the fact that women wanted to come together to show that solidarity, and we all remember the scenes of Patsy Stevenson being handcuffed on the ground by two police officers.”

She added: “Does (Cleverly) not agree that for those very same women to come forward that they need confidence in the police, and that includes suspending those police officers who have acted inappropriately at the first hurdle – no ifs, no buts?”

Home secretary James Cleverly said: "The policing of the vigil for Sarah Everard was awful. It took what was already an incredibly painful set of circumstances and made it worse, and I’ve spoken to police officers that recognise that and I will continue to speak about leadership… it’s about driving attitudinal change, it’s about a willingness to accept criticism from people who have felt victimised for far too long… to respond to those incredibly legitimate concerns at a point of incredible sadness and tragedy amplified what was already a tragic circumstance and I will everything I can to make sure situations like that are never, never repeated.”

Downing Street said the Sarah Everard murder case had undermined confidence in the police and, despite efforts to improve standards, the report highlighted that “more needs to be done”.

The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “The horrific crimes committed by then-serving Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens shocked the nation and undermined public confidence in the police.

“In the years since, the Home Office has been working closely with the police to strengthen the way that police officers are vetted, scrutinised and disciplined. And more broadly, significant efforts have been made to tackle violence against women, girls.”

There had been “huge strides” in rooting out rogue officers and improving vetting but the spokesman added: “Today’s report highlights that more needs to be done and we will thoroughly consider the recommendations.”

Former home secretary Dame Priti Patel has said police forces around the country need to “raise the bar” when it comes to vetting and action.

Patel said she hoped the Angiolini Inquiry had given Sarah Everard’s family “some sense of the facts that they asked for around what happened to their beautiful daughter”.

She told the Commons: “This is a clear call for action when it comes to all police forces around the country to raise the bar on consistency, as has already been mentioned, when it comes not just to vetting but to action. There is no place for criminal conduct at all or corrupt conduct in policing, we police by consent in our country and that bond has been broken.”

She added: “With reports two and three due to come out, will the home secretary please give a commitment that as those reviews are undertaken and as he engages with Dame (Elish) Angiolini that where issues are identified, he won’t wait for the publication of further reports, but he will act swiftly and also act very swiftly on putting forward some of the recommendations that are in part one of this report?”

Home secretary James Cleverly replied: “We haven’t waited for this report to start driving change and indeed I’ve had conversations with police leadership about my expectation of their focus on the policing of women and girls in particular, the safety of women and girls, and their attitudes towards women and girls.”

He added: “I think it’s incredibly important that leadership in every rank of policing takes this seriously.”

The Angiolini Inquiry has exposed “a catalogue of appalling failures” in policing, Yvette Cooper said, adding the government’s response to it was too weak.

The shadow home secretary thanked Dame Elish Angiolini for her work on the report into Sarah Everard killer Wayne Couzens, adding: “But it exposes a catalogue of appalling failures in the police vetting and misconduct process, and in investigating indecent exposure and sexual offences.

“Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer, he should have been stopped and he could have been stopped from being a police officer.

“It is truly appalling his history of alleged sexual offending stretches back so many years and yet opportunities to investigate were repeatedly missed, and most disturbing of all, Lady Angiolini says there is nothing to stop another Wayne Couzens operating in plain sight.”

Cooper added: “Although I agree with most of what the Home Secretary has said, I have to be really blunt about this, his response is too weak, it is too little and it is too late, and the lack of urgency is unfathomable to me.”

Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy has shared her thoughts on the findings of the Angiolini Inquiry into Wayne Couzens.

Police officers will be automatically suspended in future if charged with certain criminal offences, home secretary James Cleverly has told MPs.

The home secretary reminded the Commons of plans to give police chiefs more power over misconduct hearings, adding: “There will be a presumption for dismissal for any officer found to have committed gross misconduct.

“I can announce today that there will also be an automatic suspension of police officers charged with certain criminal offences.”

He later added: “Most police officers, of course, use their powers to serve the public bravely and well, but when they fall short the impact can be devastating.

“Society cannot function properly where trust in police is eroded.

“I am unambiguous that police forces must keep improving and must command the confidence of the people that they serve.

“It is imperative that police leadership, of whatever rank, plays their part in this endeavour.”

Home secretary James Cleverly said a “deeply distressing but incredibly important piece of work” had been produced by Lady Elish Angiolini, telling MPs: “Everyone who Couzens hurt is in my thoughts today.

“The report makes 16 recommendations and they include improving the police response to indecent exposure, reforming police recruitment and vetting practices and addressing cultures within policing.

“The government will now, of course, carefully consider the report and respond formally in due course, and I can assure the House our response will be prompt.”

Wayne Couzens’ predatory sexual behaviour started 20 years before he raped and murdered Sarah Everard and he should never have been allowed to join the police, a damning inquiry has found.

A shocking new report has uncovered allegations that Couzens committed a very serious sexual assault against a child who was barely in her teens before his policing career even started.

Lady Elish Angiolini said the allegations were among five other incidents of sexual offending which were never reported to police and, due to under-reporting of sexual offences, she fears there may be even more victims.

Read the full story from The Independent.

A series of red flags were missed about killer Wayne Couzens that meant he was able to remain an armed police officer despite being a serial sex offender, a damning report has found.

The Home Office-commissioned report found that Couzens’s history of alleged sexual offending and preference for extreme violent pornography dated back nearly 20 years before Sarah Everard’s murder.

Couzens abducted, raped and murdered 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard in March 2021, before burning and dumping her body near Dover.

Read the full story from The Independent.

Wayne Couzens “could, perhaps probably would” have been removed from policing if fuller inquiries had taken place into his behaviour in 2015 and 2020, home secretary James Cleverly has said.

In a statement to MPs, Cleverly told the Commons: “Tragically the report identifies that Couzens was completely unsuitable to serve as a police officer and, worse still, there were multiple occasions where this should, could have been recognised.

“Lady Elish found significant and repeated problems in recruitment and vetting throughout Couzens’ career, including overlooking his chaotic financial situation. This meant he was able to serve in a range of privileged roles, including as a firearms officer.

“It is appalling that reports of indecent exposure by Couzens were not taken sufficiently seriously by the police and that officers were not adequately trained, equipped or motivated to properly investigate those allegations.

“Had fuller inquiries been made in 2015 and 2020, Couzens could, perhaps probably would have been removed from policing. Evidence of his preference for extreme and violent pornography and alleged sexual offending date back nearly 20 years prior to Sarah Everard’s murder.

“And the inquiry found Couzens was adept at hiding his grossly offensive behaviour from most of his colleagues, but that he shared his vile and misogynistic views on a WhatsApp group. The other members of that group are no longer serving officers after a range of disciplinary processes.”

The government will “thoroughly consider the recommendations” made by Lady Elish Angiolini in her report into Sarah Everard’s murder by Wayne Couzens, the Home Office has said.

The Home Office highlighted “huge strides” that have already been taken in “rooting out officers not fit to wear the badge”, and said more changes to the disciplinary system were being set out.

That includes integrity screening of all serving officers, funding towards a new violence against women and girls policing taskforce, and a programme to transform the way police and the Crown Prosecution Service investigate rape, and the classification of violence against women and girls as a national threat.

“The government is bringing forward legislation that will make it easier to sack officers who fail to hold basic vetting when re-checked, as well as anyone found guilty of gross misconduct,” the department said.

“As part of these reforms we are already implementing, we are setting out further changes to the police disciplinary system today which will mean that any officer charged with an indictable offence will be automatically suspended from duty until an outcome is reached.”

Responding to the Angiolini report, Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said: “There is nothing we can say to the family of Sarah Everard and all those who loved her that will convey how very sorry we are.

“Wayne Couzens’ crimes were horrific. The fact that he abused his position as a Metropolitan Police officer to carry them out represents the most appalling betrayal of trust.

“It damages the relationship between the public and the police and exposes long-standing fundamental flaws in the way we decide who is fit to be a police officer and the way we pursue those who corrupt our integrity once they get in.

“The report published today is an urgent call to action for all of us in policing.

“We must go further and faster to earn back the trust of all those whose confidence in policing has been shaken by events of recent years.

“Regardless of our significant progress over the past year, the scale of the change that is needed inevitably means it will take time and it is not yet complete.

“The majority of my Met colleagues share my determination to reform by both confronting the risk posed by predatory men in policing, and also, improving our protection of women and children across London.”

The Angiolini Inquiry found evidence that Wayne Couzens allegedly committed a very serious sexual assault against a child, described as barely in her teens, before his policing career even started.

It also found that there were four other alleged incidents of sexual offending that were not reported to the police, and the inquiry believes there may be more victims.

Dame Elish Angiolini said: “Although Wayne Couzens was not wholly a product of his working environments, those environments did nothing to discourage his misogynistic view of women and meant that providing he presented himself as professional his deviant behaviour outside of work could flourish.

“Police leaders need to radically transform their approach to police culture if future offenders like Couzens are to be denied opportunities to abuse police powers for sexual purpose.”

She went on: “Failures of investigations, failures of HR processes, and failures of vetting policy and practice are a depressingly familiar refrain in policing, Now is the time for change.

“Without a significant overhaul, there is nothing to stop another Wayne Couzens operating in plain sight.”

The Information Commissioner said there was a need for “greater transparency” in how information on “disciplinary concerns” about police officers and recruits is shared.

John Edwards, who contributed to the Angiolini Inquiry, said: “This inquiry paints a concerning picture of how disciplinary concerns about police officers and recruits are shared.

“There is no room to hide behind misconceptions of the law on such an important matter: data protection law does not stand in the way of police sharing information about a potential recruit’s previous disciplinary action or warnings, nor does it act as a shield against investigations into police officers.

“There is a need for greater transparency here. The public have a right to understand how information will be shared to encourage trust in high standards of policing, and police officers have a right understand how their information will be shared.

“We’ll continue working with the police to make sure data protection law, and the data sharing it allows, is clearly understood and works to serve and protect the best interests of the people of the UK.”

The report sets out failures in vetting and the investigation into allegations of indecent exposure that meant Couzens was able to work for three different police forces despite being a sexual predator.

His history of unmanaged debt, alleged sexual offending and preference for violent extreme pornography went back nearly 20 years before he committed murder.

“The evidence seen by the inquiry has shown that failures in recruitment and vetting meant Couzens was able to continue a policing career which should have been denied to him,” Angiolini said.

“Failures in investigations into allegations of indecent exposure meant opportunities to disrupt Couzens’ offending and bring his policing career to a halt were missed.

“It is clear Couzens carefully managed the impression he gave people of himself. This included the way he manipulated information on application forms and his troubled finances.

“It also included the way he shared his callous views towards women with only a very small group of like-minded people on a social media group.

“This all enabled him to target vulnerable women while operating in plain sight as an apparently unremarkable officer.

“However, the fact remains that three separate police forces allowed him the privilege of being a police officer when they could and should have stopped him.”

Speaking to journalists as the report was published, inquiry chairwoman Lady Elish Angiolini said: “Wayne Couzens was never fit to be a police officer. Police leaders need to be sure there isn’t another Couzens operating in plain sight.”

She remembered Sarah Everard “whose life was cut short by the most unimaginable cruelty” and paid tribute to her family saying: “I have been profoundly affected by their grief, and their grace in suffering.”

Angiolini continued: “Sarah’s murder by an off-duty police officer shocked the nation. It triggered a surge of discourse about women’s safety in public spaces and started a tidal wave of reporting on police misconduct, particularly where officers misused their powers to commit sexual offences.

“What is already clear is how much damage Couzens has done to the social contract on which policing is based and how significant improvements are required.”

James Cleverly has said Sarah Everard was “failed in more ways than one by the people who were meant to keep her safe”.

In response to the inquiry into her murder by Met Police officer Wayne Couzens, the home secretary said: “The act of pure evil committed against Sarah shocked the nation to its core.

“My heart goes out to Sarah’s family and to all the brave victims who came forward to help inform this report and drive change.

“The man who committed these crimes is not a reflection on the majority of dedicated police officers working day in, day out to help people. But Sarah was failed in more ways than one by the people who were meant to keep her safe, and it laid bare wider issues in policing and society that need to be urgently fixed.

“In the three years since, a root-and-stem clean-up of the policing workforce has been underway and we have made huge strides – as well as making tackling violence against women and girls a national policing priority to be treated on par with terrorism.

“But we will continue to do everything in our power to protect women and girls. I am grateful to Lady Elish for her meticulous investigation. Her insights will be invaluable as we move forward in supporting our police to build forces of the highest standards of integrity and regain the trust of the British public.”

Sarah Everard’s parents and siblings Sue, Jeremy, Katie and James, said in a statement: “As a family, the inquiry has helped us, not just because of its significant findings, but because its implementation made us feel that Sarah’s life was valued and her memory honoured.

“Her death has not been dismissed as a tragic event to be acknowledged with sympathy and then forgotten – questions have been raised and actions taken to investigate how this tragedy happened.

“As a family, we have not had to fight for answers and, for this, we are very thankful.

“It is obvious that Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer. Whilst holding a position of trust, in reality he was a serial sex offender.

“Warning signs were overlooked throughout his career and opportunities to confront him were missed.

“We believe that Sarah died because he was a police officer, she would never have got into a stranger’s car.”

Their statement continued: “It is almost three years now since Sarah died. We no longer wait for her call; we no longer expect to see her.

“We know she won’t be there at family gatherings. But the desperate longing to have her with us remains and the loss of Sarah pervades every part of our lives.”

Wayne Couzens hid the level of debt that he was in and exaggerated the amount of time he spent in the Territorial Army, an inquiry has found.

Couzens, who became a special constable for Kent Police in 2002, failed vetting to become a regular officer in 2008, but was allowed to remain as a special with all the same powers as a regular constable and was permitted to work alone.

When he joined the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, an outside force – Thames Valley Police – carried out vetting and found that he should not be recruited, in line with rules around officers with heavy personal debts, but this was ignored.

In 2018, when he joined the Metropolitan Police, a search of the Police National Database, an intelligence database, found “no trace”.

In fact there were entries about an incident in 2013 when he was reported missing from home, and an allegation of indecent exposure from 2015.

These were also missed when he applied to be a firearms officer the following year.

The Met told the inquiry that it would still have recruited Couzens even if this information had been available, which the report said was “of serious concern”.

While he carefully controlled how he was seen by colleagues, Couzens spent his working life in environments dominated by men that did nothing to discourage his warped beliefs, the inquiry found.

“Although Wayne Couzens was not wholly a product of his working environments, those environments did nothing to discourage his misogynistic view of women and meant that providing he presented himself as professional his deviant behaviour outside work could flourish,” the report said.

Sarah Everard murderer Wayne Couzens could have been sacked as a police officer if vetting and investigations into indecent exposure reports had been more thorough, an inquiry has found.

His crimes were “the culmination of a trajectory of sexually motivated behaviour and offending”, including indecent exposure, the sexual assault on a child, sexual touching and sharing unsolicited photos of his genitals, the report found.

It said that there were also allegations that he possessed indecent images of children.

Police investigations into alleged indecent exposure in 2015 and 2021, in the days before the murder, were “of poor quality and inadequate”, and “seemed destined to fail from the start”.

“Rather than embarking on a process of detailed, thorough and time-consuming evidence-gathering, the officers displayed apathy and disinterest and found reasons not to pursue the cases”, the report said.

A series of red flags were missed about killer Wayne Couzens that meant he was able to remain a police officer despite being a serial sex offender who was deeply in debt, a damning report has found.

Lady Elish Angiolini, who led the inquiry into his career across three forces, found that without major changes there is nothing in place to stop another monster like Couzens going undetected.

The family of Sarah Everard, who was kidnapped, raped and murdered by Couzens in 2021, said they believe she was killed because he was a police officer, and she would never have got into a stranger’s car.

Elish said: “Failures of investigations, failures of recruitment processes, and failures of vetting policy and practice are a depressingly familiar refrain in policing.

“Now is the time for change and I have made 16 recommendations to bring about the necessary changes.

“Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer. And, without a significant overhaul, there is nothing to stop another Wayne Couzens operating in plain sight.”

The report found that Couzens’ history of alleged sexual offending and preference for extreme violent pornography dated back nearly 20 years before Everard’s murder.

He is accused of having sexually assaulted a child “barely in her teens” while in his early 20s, and the inquiry identified four more victims who had not reported sexual crimes to the police, and it is feared there may be more.

The family of Sarah Everard said they believed the 33-year-old died because Wayne Couzens was a police officer, adding: “She would never have got into a stranger’s car” as they welcomed the inquiry’s findings.

Sarah Everard’s killer Wayne Couzens should never have been given a job as a police officer and chances to stop the sexual predator were repeatedly ignored and missed, an inquiry has found.

Wayne Couzens served in three police forces before he murdered Sarah Everard and was sentenced to die in prison.

Concerns were raised about his behaviour at various points before the killing, including when he exposed himself to women and his demeanour at work, with claims that he was nicknamed “the rapist”.

Read the full story from PA for a timeline of events concerning the former police officer.

Arabella James still has just as many questions as she did in those first, unforgettable few days after Sarah Everard’s death three years ago, when news that she’d been murdered by a police officer shocked the nation and galvanised a movement on women’s safety.

The south-west Londoner and her housemates still live within a mile of the street in Clapham in which Everard, a 33-year-old Durham graduate and marketing executive, was abducted, raped and killed by an off-duty Metropolitan Police constable in a series of shocking events set to be retold in a bombshell BBC documentary next Tuesday.

Read the full story from the Evening Standard.

The independent report is set to publish damning findings on whether red flags were missed about killer police officer Wayne Couzens.

The 51-year-old used his status as a police officer to trick Sarah Everard into thinking he could arrest her for breaking lockdown rules in place at the time.

After the harrowing killing, it emerged there had been concerns about Couzens’ behaviour while he was a police officer, with reports he was nicknamed “the rapist”.

He joined Kent Police as a special constable in 2002, became an officer with the Civil Nuclear Constabulary in 2011 and then moved to the Met in 2018.

Couzens indecently exposed himself three times before the murder, including twice at a drive-through fast food restaurant in Kent in the days before the killing.

He was not caught despite driving his own car and using his own credit card at the time.

Then-Metropolitan Police constable Samantha Lee was sacked and barred from being a police officer after it was found she had not properly investigated the incidents.

Couzens was also later revealed to have been part of a WhatsApp group with fellow officers that shared disturbing racist, homophobic and misogynist remarks.