Sarah Everard's killer Wayne Couzens should never have been police officer - Angiolini Inquiry

By Judith Burns & Thomas Mackintosh, BBC News

Sarah Everard's killer Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer and opportunities were missed to stop him, an inquiry has said.

A radical overhaul of police vetting and recruitment is needed now, the independent review found.

Couzens abducted, raped and murdered Everard while off duty in March 2021.

Everard's family said warning signs were "overlooked" throughout Couzens' policing career - which spanned nearly 20 years.

Police "repeatedly failed" to spot warning signs about his unsuitability to be an officer, the inquiry said, and it identified at least five incidents which were not reported to police.

The inquiry said this included evidence Couzens allegedly committed a very serious sexual assault against a child, described as barely in her teens, before his policing career began.

Lady Elish Angiolini, the lawyer leading the three-stage inquiry, believes there could be more victims. She said: "Without a significant overhaul, there is nothing to stop another Couzens operating in plain sight.

"Now is the time for change," she added, urging "all those in authority in every police force in the country to read this report and take immediate action".

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley described the report as "an urgent call to action for all of us in policing".

In a statement Everard's parents and siblings Sue, Jeremy, Katie and James, said "it is obvious that Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer" and that "while holding a position of trust, in reality he was a serial sex offender".

"We believe that Sarah died because he was a police officer. She would never have got into a stranger's car," they added.

Home Secretary James Cleverly said Everard was "failed in more ways than one by the people who were meant to keep her safe".

Lady Elish was asked to see if red flags were missed about Couzens, who was an armed officer guarding high-profile buildings and had finished a shift at the US Embassy before he killed Everard.

Couzens, now 51, joined Kent Police as a special constable in 2002 and became an officer with the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC) in 2011.

He transferred to the Met in 2018 and was on armed protection duties at Parliament between February and July 2020.

Lady Elish's first report highlights how Couzens' liking for violent and extreme pornography, and his history of unmanaged debt and alleged sexual offending date back nearly 20 years before Everard's murder.

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.

Lady Elish said there were allegations Couzens possessed indecent images of children.

The report found:

• three police forces - Kent, the CNC and the Met - failed to spot the red flags about his unsuitability for office when they "could and should have stopped him"
• Couzens "could enjoy the powers and privileges that accompany the role of police officer" and "he went on to use his knowledge of police powers to falsely arrest Sarah Everard"
• investigations into allegations of indecent exposure by Couzens in 2015, 2020 and 2021, were marred by police failures
• Couzens' crimes "sit on the same continuum" as sexist and misogynistic behaviour within police culture

Met Commissioner Sir Mark accepted the scale of change needed "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," he said.

Separately, Lady Elish's report looked at Couzens' behaviour in the days before murdering Everard. During this time, he indecently exposed himself on three occasions - including twice at a drive-through McDonalds in Swanley, Kent.

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

Kent Police also apologised for failing to properly investigate when Couzens was reported for indecent exposure in 2015.

Lady Elish's report said victims of his indecent exposures who reported his offending were not taken sufficiently seriously by the police.

"The police officers who responded to those victims were not adequately trained, equipped or motivated to investigate the allegations properly," the report said.

A PC was sacked after it was found she had not properly investigated the incidents. But, the former officer later claimed she was made a "scapegoat" for wider failings.

Chief Constable Gavin Stephens of the National Police Chiefs' Council, which represents force leaders, said the inquiry's report was a "glowing red signal to all police officers".

"We collectively will not stop until the public, especially women and girls, get the policing they deserve and confidence in our role as protectors is rebuilt," he said.

His colleague Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth called Everard's murder "a watershed moment". "We're turning the tables on men who are violent to women," she said.

Jamie Klingler who founded the group Reclaim These Streets in the wake of Everard's murder said she felt worse about women's safety and police conduct than she did three years ago.

"I'm not scared there's one more Wayne Couzens on the Metropolitan Police, I'm scared there's many, many of them," she said.

Lady Elish's recommendations include:

• Better training to improve investigation of indecent exposure cases
• A public information campaign to raise awareness of the illegality of indecent exposure, including the sending of unsolicited photographs
• Better vetting, including in-person interviews and home visits for everyone applying to be a police officer
• Zero tolerance of sexist, misogynistic and racist "banter" in every police force
• Better information sharing between forces to flag vetting failures
• Police officers and staff to face randomised re-vetting throughout their careers
• Greater efforts to recruit more female officers and better support for staff who report sexual offences by fellow officers

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Cleverly announced a number of measures in response to the report in the House of Commons - including the automatic suspension of officers charged with certain offences.

Labour's shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, said the government was "repeatedly warned about failures around vetting and misconduct" in the police - citing reports in 2012, 2019, 2022, and in 2023 which all highlighted "serious failures in vetting procedures".

The second stage of the Home Office inquiry will explore the possibility there is a "deep-rooted culture in policing in which finding reasons not to pursue a crime is preferred over any attempt to build a successful case for prosecution".

A third section will focus on another disgraced Met Police officer - David Carrick who was jailed last year for dozens of rapes and sexual offences against 12 women.

Additional reporting by Alex Binley

This story was originally published by the BBC.