Wayne Couzens, the British police officer who abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard, has been sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Gatekeepers News reports that Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, was walking to her London home on March 3 when Couzens used his police identification and handcuffs to deceive her into getting in his car under the pretence that she had violated COVID-19 rules.
He raped her and strangled her with his police belt later that evening, a case that sparked outrage and a national debate about violence against women. Her remains were found days later in woodland near Ashford, Kent.
Couzens was later arrested at his home in Kent, close to where Everard’s body was found. Due to his guilty pleas, there was no trial, but the sentencing hearing.
On Thursday, he was sentenced to a whole-life prison term, a very rare judgement in the United Kingdom and reserved for exceptionally serious crimes.
Lord Justice Adrian Fulford, while delivering the sentence in court at London’s Old Bailey, the central criminal court of England and Wales, described Everard as a “blameless victim of a grotesquely executed series of offences” and called the case “devastating, tragic and wholly brutal.”
The judge added that Couzens, 48, had spent the entire evening of March 3 “hunting a lone female to kidnap and rape.”
Gatekeepers News reports that London’s Metropolitan Police sacked Couzens in July, days after he pleaded guilty to Everard’s kidnap, rape and murder.
“You have irretrievably damaged the lives of Sarah Everard’s family and friends … you have eroded the confidence that the public are entitled to have in the police forces … you have utterly betrayed your family,” the judge said in his sentencing remarks.
Couzens, while standing in the dock, kept his head bowed and his eyes closed, as he had done throughout the whole two-day sentencing hearing. The judge criticized Couzens’ behaviour in court, saying he had seen “no evidence of genuine contrition on your part as opposed to evident self-pity.”
Couzens’ defence lawyer, Jim Sturman QC failed to convince the court that the crimes didn’t meet the test for the imposition of a whole-life prison term. He argued there were several mitigating factors, including Couzens’ early guilty plea and what he said was genuine remorse, his underlying depression and the lack of prior convictions.
“He is filled with self-loathing and abject shame, as he should be,” Sturman told the court shortly before the sentence was delivered.
Prosecutor Little summarized Couzens’ actions as “deception, kidnap, rape, strangulation, fire.” Little also detailed what eyewitnesses to the kidnapping on March 3 saw, saying they observed Couzens handcuff Everard, who appeared compliant and had her head down. They thought he was an undercover police officer arresting a woman.
According to the prosecutor, Everard was alive for hours after her kidnapping and was moved to Couzens’ own car later that evening.
“In order to have done so and without her escaping or trying to escape or make a noise, it can be inferred that he, at least, must have threatened her,” Little told the court.
Prosecutors believe Everard died around 2.30 a.m. on March 4, several hours after she was kidnapped by Couzens.
Everard’s family was given the opportunity to speak in court on Wednesday, demanding that Couzens, who spent the hearing with his eyes closed and head bowed, look at them while they read their statements.
Sarah’s mother, Susan, said her daughter “spent the last hours on this earth with the very worst of humanity. She lost her life because Wayne Couzens wanted to satisfy his perverted desires … He treated my daughter as if she was nothing and disposed of her as if she was rubbish. I am haunted by the horror of it.”
Everard’s family said they were “pleased” with the sentence handed to Couzens. “Nothing can make things better, nothing can bring Sarah back, but knowing he will be imprisoned forever brings some relief,” they said in a statement.
