The police officer who strangled Sarah Everard with his police belt after kidnapping her under the guise of an arrest will die in jail
Sentencing has taken place at the Old Bailey on Thursday, Lord Justice Fulford had said that the seriousness of the case was so “exceptionally high” that it warranted a whole life order for the murderer.
Wayne Couzens, aged 48, was handed a whole life order for the “grotesque” killing of the 33-year-old marketing executive which has shocked and outraged the entire nation.
Sentencing took place at the Old Bailey on Thursday, Lord Justice Fulford said the seriousness of the case was so “exceptionally high” it warranted a whole life order.
“The misuse of a police officer’s role such as occurred in this case in order to kidnap, rape and murder a lone victim is of equal seriousness as a murder for the purpose of advancing a political, religious ideological cause.”
He described the murder as “devastating” and “tragic” and that Couzens went out “hunting a lone female to kidnap and rape”.
This comes after The then-Metropolitan Police officer may have used the coronavirus lockdown rules as an excuse to stop her as she was walking home, lock her in the back of his hire car, before then driving her 80 miles to kill her.
He said Ms Everard was “a wholly blameless victim of a grotesque series of circumstances that culminated in her death”.
He added that the last moments of Sarah Everard’s life were “as bleak and agonising as it is possible to imagine”, he added.
Couzens shook in the dock as he was sent down to begin his sentence.
Lord Justice Fulford paid tribute to the dignity of Sarah Everard’s family, whose statements in the court revealed the human impact of Couzen’s “warped, selfish and brutal offending which was both sexual and homicidal”.
The court had heard how Wayne Couzens used his Metropolitan Police-issue warrant card and handcuffs to arrest and kidnap Ms Everard as she walked home from a friend’s house in Clapham, south London, on the evening of the 3rd of March.
The Met firearms officer, who had clocked off from a 12-hour shift at the American embassy that morning, then went on to drive to a secluded rural area near Dover in Kent, where he parked up and raped Ms Everard.
Sarah Everard, who lived in Brixton, south London, had been strangled with Couzens’ police issue belt by 2.30am the following morning.
Officer Couzens then burned her body in a refrigerator in an area of woodland that he owned in Hoads Wood, near Ashford, before then dumping her remains into a nearby pond.
He was arrested at his home in Deal, Kent, after the police connected him to a hire car that he used to abduct Ms Everard, whose remains were found by police dogs on the 10th of March.
In an emergency interview at his home, Couzens had concocted a fake story that he had been “leant” on by a gang which had forced him to hand over “a girl”.
He then went on to plead guilty to Ms Everard’s kidnap, rape and murder and was sacked then from the police force in July.
This comes after the UK government is now considering using the army, in order to help with the fuel deliveries as some petrol brands report that as many as 90% of their sites are now running dry.
On Wednesday, Ms Everard’s parents Jeremy and Susan, as well as her sister Katie, asked Wayne Couzens to look at them, condemning him as a “monster” as he sat quaking in the dock with his head down.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick also attended court in order to hear how one of her own police officers had abused his position in order to carry out his crimes.
Couzens’ defence barrister Jim Sturman QC, had urged the judge to hand him a lengthy life sentence, meaning that he would be eligible for parole when he is in his 80s.
Mr Sturman said that: “The defendant was invited to look at the Everards. He could not, I am told.
“He is ashamed. What he has done is terrible. He deserves a very lengthy finite term, but he did all he could after he was arrested to minimise the wicked harm that he did.”