‘She was simply walking home’: Judge slams ‘self-pitying, grotesque’ UK rapist/killer cop

Wayne Couzens has been told he will spend the rest of his life in jail for murder of Sarah Everard in March in the British Capital, London

Couzens, 48, became the first police officer in British history to receive a whole life sentence – without possibility of parole

Sarah Everard, 33, ‘vanished into thin air’ after leaving a friend’s house in Clapham, south London on the night of March 3

Police constable Wayne Couzens was arrested a week later based on CCTV footage showing he was the last person to see Everard alive

It turned out he’d falsely arrested the missing marketing executive on a COVID charge

Footage shows PR executive on the pavement with depraved Met officer moments before he kidnapped her

Couzens cuffed hands behind her back, leaving her incapable of undoing the seatbelt he strapped around her

She was raped, murdered and burned in pre-meditated attack that was weeks in planning

Investigators said Couzens staged the arrest of Everard before raping and strangling her with his police-issue belt 

Couzens watched with head bowed while victim’s family, friends and boyfriend listened from public stalls

Police Chief Cressida Dick facing calls to quit again after another scandal and despite controversial new contract

‘We are very pleased that Wayne Couzens has received a full life sentence and will spend the rest of his life in jail. Nothing can make things better, nothing can bring Sarah back, but knowing he will be imprisoned forever brings some relief.
‘Sarah lost her life needlessly and cruelly and all the years of life she had yet to enjoy were stolen from her. Wayne Couzens held a position of trust as a police officer and we are outraged and sickened that he abused this trust in order to lure Sarah to her death. The world is a safer place with him imprisoned.
‘It is almost seven months since Sarah died and the pain of losing her is overwhelming. We miss her all the time. She was a beautiful young woman in looks and character and our lives are the poorer without her. We remember all the lovely things about Sarah – her compassion and kindness, her intelligence, her strong social conscience. But we especially like to remember her laughing and dancing and enjoying life. We hold her safe in our hearts.
‘We are immensely grateful to the police and legal team who worked on Sarah’s case. We cannot thank them enough for their meticulous and painstaking work and for their constant support. We also send our heartfelt thanks to our family and friends for comforting us through this terrible time.’

Britain’s most hated policeman Wayne Couzens was today jailed for the rest of his life with no chance of parole after he ‘misused’ his ‘office and authority’ as a Met officer to kidnap, rape and murder his helpless victim Sarah Everard who was ‘simply walking home’.
Lord Justice Fulford told Couzens he is a ‘warped’ and ‘self-pitying’ killer who relied on his position and knowledge of Covid-19 lockdown laws to carry out one of the most shocking crimes in recent history. 
Sarah’s tearful family watched as Couzens, 48, became the first police officer in British history to receive a whole life sentence, standing to face him as he was taken to the cells.
Accusing him of ‘eroding’ public trust in police and making women more frightened to walk the streets, the judge said: ‘Sarah Everard was a wholly blameless victim of a grotesque series of offences’, adding: ‘She was simply walking home’.  

The judge made the killer stand and face the court as he handed down a whole life term reserved for around 70 of Britain’s most dangerous criminals including serial killers and terrorists. The defendant kept his head bowed through the proceedings.
‘Wayne Couzens, you kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard, having long planned a violent sexual assault on a yet-to-be-selected victim who you intended to coerce into your custody, the judge said. 
‘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 of England and Wales. 
‘I have seen no evidence of genuine contrition on your part as opposed to evident self-pity and attempts by you to avoid or minimize the proper consequences of what you have done’.    
Outside the Old Bailey, London’s iconic courthouse, his former boss, Metropolitan Police Chief, Commissioner Cressida Dick, refused to resign but admitted the now-sacked officer had ‘brought shame on the Met’ and damaged the ‘precious bond of trust’ between the public and police. 
Chief Cressida said: ‘Sarah’s kidnap, rape and murder was one of the most dreadful events in the 190-year history of the Metropolitan Police Service.
‘There are no words that can fully express the fury and sadness we feel about what happened to Sarah. I am so sorry’, adding: ‘Speaking frankly as an organization, we have been rocked. I absolutely know that there are those that feel their trust in us is shaken’.
Scotland Yard today ended a policy of allowing plainclothes officers to patrol alone – after Couzens used it to stage the arrest of Everard before raping and strangling her with his police-issue belt. 
People will also be allowed to call the police control room to check the officer is genuine as experts predicted the lack of trust may lead to women running away. 

The Met faces grave questions about how a twisted predator with a history of flashing and addiction to violent porn remained in their midst and was even given the job of an armed officer guarding London’s embassies.
There are again calls for Commissioner Dick to resign after yet another scandal on her watch after it emerged Couzens was nicknamed ‘The Rapist’ by former colleagues and exposed himself to two women three days before he abducted and killed the marketing executive, 33, on the night of March 3 this year.
But the Met only linked him to the sex crimes after his arrest for Sarah’s murder amid claims they were too slow to investigate to the incidents at a McDonald’s drive thru in Swanley where he ordered food from his car while wearing no trousers.
As Couzens received the most severe prison sentence ever handed to a serving police officer.
Couzens, who has not said a word in the two-day hearing, shook slightly as he was jailed in front of his victim’s family, who calmly looked on from the well of the court.
Sarah Everard’s parents Jeremy and Susan who bravely faced their daughter’s killer and called him a ‘monster’ and ‘the very worst of humanity’, sighed with relief, clasped hands and hugged police officers after Couzens shuffled out of the dock to be taken down to the cells.
Couzens is currently being held in Belmarsh Prison in south-east London but may be sent to spend the rest of his life on the ‘Beast Wing’ at HMP Full Sutton, where he would be kept with other killers including Jeremy Bamber and John Cannan as well as serial rapists and pedophiles being protected from the rest of the prison population.     

Wayne Couzens was swept into the Old Bailey this morning to be sentenced for one of the most revolting and repulsive crimes in recent history. He will now never see the light of day as a free man.
Sarah’s father Jeremy, mother Susan, sister Katie and brother James were present at the Old Bailey for sentencing. They Family had confronted Couzens a day earlier but he refused to look at them.
Whole life orders: Couzens is given a rare ‘life means life’ sentence that will see him die in jail.
Whole life orders are the most severe punishment available in the UK criminal justice system for those who commit the most serious crimes.
Wayne Couzens joins a string of some of the country’s most dangerous offenders who are expected to die behind bars.
There are 60 criminals serving whole life orders, according to UK Government records, notoriety he now shares with Britain’s most prolific serial killers – Felons who will never be considered for release, unless there are exceptional compassionate grounds to warrant it.
During sentencing Couzens stood but failed to look at the judge or Sarah Everard’s family as he was given a whole-life sentence at the Old Bailey – the first ever given to a police officer.

Setting out why Couzens deserved a whole life term, the judge said the circumstances of the case are ‘devastating, tragic and wholly brutal’ and the evidence gathered against Couzens by his former colleagues at the Met and Kent Police was ‘unanswerable’ and there was ‘no credible innocent explanation’ for it, he said.
Couzens went ‘hunting a lone female to kidnap and rape’ having planned in ‘unspeakably’ grim detail, the judge said, adding: ‘Notwithstanding his guilty pleas, in my view the defendant throughout sought to minimize his true responsibility for what occurred.
‘At no stage has he offered any kind of full explanation as to what occurred in the fateful few hours’.
The defendant’s preparations included taking some of his police kit with him and lying to his family about working on the night of the murder, the Old Bailey heard.
The judge paid tribute to the dignity of Everard’s family, whose statements in court revealed the human impact of the ‘warped, selfish and brutal offending which was both sexual and homicidal.’  Lord Justice Fulford said Couzens tried to ‘minimize his true responsibility’ for what had occurred from the moment he spoke to police.
He said the defendant must have realized he ‘may well need to kill the woman he intended to abduct and rape’ but that did not become a ‘definite outcome’ before events began to unfold. 
Earlier Couzens’ QC told the Old Bailey earlier that Couzens shouldn’t die behind bars because there have been ‘worse crimes’ than the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard.

Couzens’ defense attorney Jim Sturman claimed his client, 48, is ‘filled with self-loathing, abject shame and remorse’ for killing Sarah Everard, despite his client never offering any explanation or public apology for what he has done. 
Sturman admitted that Couzens still cannot face Sarah’s parents, who were in court today.
The defense attorney his client couldn’t look the Everard family in the face either, a day earlier when asked to look at the family when they described their collective grief, torment and rage because of what he did to their daughter.
He said: ‘He was invited to look at the Everards. He could not I am told. He is ashamed,’ Sturman told the court.
‘What he has done is terrible. He deserves a very lengthy finite term but he did all he could after he was arrested to minimize the wicked harm that he did.’ 
He also said Couzens mental health problems were ‘genuine’ and he had ‘not played the system’. He said: ‘There is very little evidence he drove from Kent to London with murder on his mind’, arguing he bought the items to dispose of the body after she was strangled to death with his police-issue belt, adding: ‘Nothing I say today is at all intended to minimize the horror of what Couzens did’ and that Couzens ‘makes no excuses’.
Sturman argued that while Couzens had pre-planned the abduction, it was ‘not inevitable’ that Sarah would be murdered, adding he should be shown some leniency for pleading guilty and sparing her family the ‘agony’ of a three-week trial.

Police Com. Cressida Dick today said convicted killer, disgraced police officer Wayne Couzens had ‘brought shame on the Met’ as she apologized at how he was able to abuse his position to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard – but resisted calls to resign amid anger at the multiple missed chances to identify him as a sexual predator.
The Met commissioner said she was ‘absolutely horrified’ at the atrocity and said she recognized ‘the precious bond of trust has been damaged’ – as the force announced it will not deploy plain clothes police officers on their own in an effort to reassure the public.
Meanwhile, British Home Secretary Priti Patel today said the Met Police had ‘serious questions’ to answer over the case, even as she stood by the police chief following calls for her to resign amid fury at how the officer was able to ‘slip the net’.
The Home Secretary said Britain’s biggest force should be ‘held to account’ but avoided questions on whether she should now step down.
She said: ‘I think first of all there are important questions and questions that I’ve been asking and challenges, we have to be honest about this, in particular to this case, but also the conduct of that serving officer and conduct of policing more broadly.
‘So, I will continue to work with the Metropolitan Police and the Commissioner to hold them to account as everybody would expect me to do, and I will continue to do that.’

The Met is being investigated by the police watchdog for its alleged failure to investigate two flashings which have since been linked to Couzens at a McDonald’s in south London three days before he kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard.
There are also questions how the sexual deviant, 48, passed vetting to become an armed parliamentary and diplomatic protection officer despite numerous rumors of his bad character, including claims he was addicted to violent pornography and had mistreated women.
Sturman said Couzens’s guilty pleas had saved the Everards ‘the terror’ of what the verdicts would be. He said his family struggled to reconcile how ‘the man they loved’ who had given ‘no indication of violence towards the person’ could have ‘behaved in this way’.
Mr Sturman added: ‘He appeared to be living a life as a law-abiding man with a loving family and his colleagues described him as calm and friendly.
‘Nothing I say today is at all intended to minimize the horror of what the defendant did that night and after. He makes no excuses for his actions, he accepts he will receive, and he deserves, a severe punishment. No right-minded person… can feel anything other than revulsion for what he did.
‘He does not seek to make excuses for anything that he did and he is filled with self-loathing and abject shame. And he should be.’ 
The Metropolitan Police today announced they will not deploy plain clothes officers on their own, following the sentencing of Wayne Couzens.
Deputy Commissioner Sir Stephen House said: ‘We will not operate plain clothes officers on their own. If we do use them, they will be in pairs.’
He said there will be ‘occasions’ where that is not possible – such as when a pair of officers are split up – and noted that off-duty officers not in uniform ‘put themselves on duty’ when they come across an incident.

Sir Stephen acknowledged that a warrant card may not be enough to convince all members of the public that the holder is a legitimate police officer.
He went on: ‘Producing a warrant card and saying ‘I’m a Metropolitan Police officer’ may not be enough in certain circumstances.
‘We are instructing our officers, the policy going forward will be that they must facilitate a greater trust.
‘If that is, if necessary, by allowing phone calls to be made to our control room, so that the officer can show the warrant card and the person in the control room can say ‘yes, Steve House is a police officer and his warrant number – which will be on the warrant card – is as follows’.
‘That should be enough to confirm identity, we believe. We know we have to go further to achieve trust and to prove identity of plain clothed officers.
‘And we are prepared and keen to do that.’
Asked about the Met’s description of Wayne Couzens as a ‘former officer’, Sir Stephen House said: ‘We should own this. I hope my statement made it clear we do own this.
‘Technically, he is an ex-officer. He wasn’t. He wasn’t at the time of the homicide, quite obviously.
‘He was one of us and we need to look at ourselves very, very carefully to understand a, how was he allowed to be one of us, and what does it say about us as an organization that he was.’
He said it is ‘understandable’ for officers to think ‘that’s not how I behave, he’s not one of us’.
But he added: ‘It’s not the commissioner’s position, it’s not my position. Organizationally we own this guilt.’
Couzens cut a pathetic figure as he refused to raise his head in the dock as Sarah Everard’s family told him of their torment, rage and being haunted by her final hours. Couzens, a married father of two, even walked his family in woodland yards from where he had dumped Sarah’s body.

Police reportedly, missed multiple chances to identify Couzens as sexual predator:
First, Couzens has been linked to an incident three days before Miss Everard was kidnapped which saw two members of staff being flashed at a branch of McDonald’s in south London. The Met is being investigated by the IOPC for allegedly failing to probe these two separate incidents, despite apparently being provided with CCTV. Couzens was only identified as a suspect after the murder of Sarah Everard. 
Secondly, a male motorist reported a man for driving naked from the waist down in 2015. An IOPC inquiry is underway over Kent Police’s alleged failure to investigate the report. Couzens was never a suspect at the time. Couzens was never a suspect at the time.  
More disturbing, Couzens passed the compulsory vetting for the elite Met Armed Unit. 
The Met is also facing questions about how its vetting process failed to pick up concerns around Couzens before he was made an armed officer in its elite Diplomatic Protection Group, which involved him guarding embassies, VIPs and members of the Royal Family.
There were numerous clues about Couzens’ bad character tracing back to the point he joined the force.
Couzens used to work at his father’s garage in Dover before joining the Kent Special Constabulary at some point after 2002. The court heard a colleague in that year spoke of ‘his attraction to brutal sexual pornography’, which the defense urged the court to ignore because it related to a single incident ‘which is almost impossible to examine now.
Painting the portrait it emerged that the defendant was nicknamed ‘The Rapist’ by colleagues in the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, because of his inappropriate behavior around women.
He used prostitutes and had a fake Match.com dating profile despite being married with two children, his trial heard.
In 2018, Couzens allegedly, was reported to superiors after slapping a female police officer’s bottom at Bromley police station, but it appears no action was taken.
While at Bromley, it is also alleged he became the subject of gossip for only stopping female motorists – before taking their details so he could watch their homes.
In other instances he would park outside schools to leer at mothers and sixth formers.
In response, The Met said: ‘Couzens was a serving and vetted police officer when he joined the Met. He had no criminal convictions or cautions and he was not subject to any misconduct proceedings during his time at the MPS. We are aware of no other concerns raised by his colleagues or anyone regarding his behavior.’

The victim’s mother, Susan faced Couzens in the courtroom at the Old Bailey Wednesday and in a brave and moving victim impact statement called him ‘the very worst of humanity’ and revealed she wakes every morning and always thinks: ‘Don’t get in the car, Sarah. Don’t believe him. Run!’.
She added: ‘I am repulsed by the thought of Wayne Couzens and what he did to Sarah’.
Her father, Jeremy Everard, demanded Couzens look at him while he was giving his testimony but his daughter’s murderer refused, having kept his head bowed throughout yesterday’s six-hour hearing.
The murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens was ‘a truly evil thing to do’, Nick Price of the Crown Prosecution Service said.
In a statement, he said: ‘The investigation in this case by the Metropolitan Police was meticulous, and our joint prosecution team worked hard to bring the strongest possible case to court.
‘The court has now heard the evidence that showed his deliberate planning, and continued efforts to cover up his crimes.
‘We all feel betrayed that Couzens abused his position as a police officer to commit such abhorrent crimes. All of us should be free to walk our streets safely.’
The Police Federation said ‘predator’ Couzens was ‘an absolute disgrace to the police service’.
John Apter, National Chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said: ‘This predator is an absolute disgrace to the police service, and I am totally ashamed that he was ever a police officer.
‘I am proud to carry a warrant card, but this vile individual’s abuse of that authority has cast a shadow on all those who work within policing. He has brought disgrace to our uniform.’
Couzens stopped Miss Everard on the street and used Covid laws as a ploy to ‘arrest’ the marketing executive and force her into his rental car before raping and strangling her to death in a sickening five-hour ordeal.
Footage taken from a passing dashcam shows the 33-year-old stood on a pavement on Poynders Road in Clapham as Couzens, who was wearing handcuffs on his police belt, speaks to her. 
She was then driven for two hours to Dover where he forcibly moved her from the hire car into his own black Seat before continuing along remote back roads to Hoad’s Wood where he raped her, strangled her with his belt and stashed her body in a fridge.
Earlier that night, he spent two hours driving through central and south London – prowling Kensington, Lavender Hill and Earls Court for a lone young woman to abduct – before stalking Miss Everard and stopping next to her.  

As the depraved killer watched in the Old Bailey with his head bowed, Miss Everard’s family heard in horrific detail how Miss Everard spent her final hours before the serving Metropolitan Police officer raped and murdered her, and then burned her body in a pre-meditated attack that was weeks in the planning. 
Her mother Susan told the Old Bailey: ‘Sarah died in horrendous circumstances. I am tormented at the thought of what she endured. 
‘I play it out in my mind. I go through the terrible sequence of events. I wonder when she realized she was in mortal danger; I wonder what her murderer said to her. When he strangled her, for how long was she conscious, knowing she would die? It is torture to think of it. Sarah was handcuffed.’
Her father Jeremy added: ‘Sarah was handcuffed and unable to defend herself. This preys on my mind all the time.
It coincided with a string of increasingly sick behavior which saw the married father-of-two flashing two women in McDonald’s across two separate incidents. 
Witnesses later described how Miss Everard – who had spent the evening at a friend’s house sharing a bottle of wine – appeared ‘compliant’ with her ‘head down’ as the ‘confident-looking’ officer made what seemed to be a late-night arrest at the height of lockdown in March.
CCTV footage captured by a passing bus showed Miss Everard in the back seat of Couzens’ hire car after she was falsely ‘arrested’. 
Couzens, who lied to his family about working a night shift that evening, then drove Miss Everard 80 miles to a remote stretch of road in his home county of Kent. Prosecutor Tom Little QC said: ‘She must have realized her fate.’ 

Miss Everard’s devastated family listened from the public gallery as the Old Bailey heard harrowing details of how Couzens took her to a rural area and raped her, before later being seen buying Lucozade and other drinks from BP station with her body in boot, after she was believed to have been murdered.
Distressing details of the timeline suggest Miss Everard could have been alive for more than four hours in the back of Couzens’ car. She was snatched off the street by 9.30pm and when the killer pulled into the garage at 2.30am, Sarah is thought to have been in his boot, already dead. 
The court heard he confessed to a psychiatrist that he had strangled Miss Everard with his belt, and the prosecution said her injuries were consistent with ones that would have been caused by his police belt.
Couzens – who had prepared for the abduction by buying a rental car and a sheet of film from Amazon – hid her body inside a fridge in a patch of rubbish-strewn woodland before torching it. 
Footage released by police showed the moment Couzens rented the car he would go on to use to prowl the streets of London for almost two hours before picking up Miss Everard.
The CCTV clip showed Couzens calmly laughing with a female attendant. He joked ‘you’ve put me on the spot’ while trying to remember his phone number as she took his details.
He went on to visit a Tesco store in west London to buy a pack of 14 hairbands just an hour before Miss Everard was abducted on March 3, before making further trips to a B&Q two days after Miss Everard is believed to have been killed. He also visited a Homebase in Folkestone on the morning of Monday, March 8.
CCTV footage showed the moment he went on to visit a BP garage in Dover on Friday, March 5 to buy and fill a petrol canister – believed to have been used to burn Miss Everard’s body. 
Just days after the murder, the father-of-two took his wife and children on a family trip and allowed the youngsters to play near a pond where he had dumped Miss Everard’s remains, the prosecution said.

Quizzed by police, he lied that he had been ‘leant on’ by an Eastern European gang who threatened to harm his family if he did not agree to pick up a woman and hand her over to the occupants of a van near Maidstone.
Taken to Wandsworth Police Station, he repeatedly tried to self-harm by banging his head on a sink and running into a wall, and was put under constant watch before appearing in court. 
Yesterday, Miss Everard’s family and friends gave victim impact statements to the Old Bailey. 
The Old Bailey heard horrific details of the serving police officer’s deceit and Sarah’s final hours before she was raped, murdered and burned in a pre-meditated attack that was weeks in the planning:  Killer cop’s ‘wife silently watched him face justice’: Wayne Couzens’ spouse is believed to have logged in to court feed remotely to hear sentencing – as her sister says family’s ‘heads are still spinning’ from trying to comprehend crime.
The wife of killer cop Wayne Couzens silently watched him be jailed for the rest of his life remotely on a court camera feed.
Olena Couzens logged in to view the two-day hearing at the Old Bailey from an unknown location.
The mother-of-two was believed to be among others unable to get to court but wanted to follow the sentencing.
Her husband was sentenced to a whole life order for kidnapping, raping and murdering Sarah Everard and will never be freed.
Couzens stood with his head bowed throughout the sentencing hearing and did not look up as he was ordered by the judge to stand. **He shook slightly as he was jailed in front of his victim’s family, who calmly looked on from the well of the court.

Sarah Everard’s parents Jeremy and Susan clasped hands and hugged police officers after Couzens shuffled out of the dock to be taken down to the cells.
Olena’s sister-in-law says the family still don’t understand why he murdered her and their ‘heads are spinning’ from trying to come to terms with it.
Tetyana Obukhova, 39, who is the older sister of Olena, said: ‘I don’t know why he’d done what he’s done, my head has been spinning for days, weeks while I was trying to understand it.
‘I don’t know the reasons that made him do it, and I’m not going to speculate.
‘He must serve quite a severe punishment for what he’s done.’
Ms Obukhova said her sister, Couzens’ shattered wife of 15 years, was still living in the UK and she didn’t know if she was planning to move with the couple’s children back to Ukraine.

A family handout of Miss Everard that was released through the Crown Prosecution Service this afternoon 

Miss Everard’s family leave the Old Bailey after a previous hearing where Couzens made two guilty pleas. Her father Jeremy is seen on the left, with her sister Katie can be seen on the right.

Couzens’ lies about being forced to ‘pick up a girl’ by an Eastern European gang who threatened his family  
Dramatic police bodycam footage has revealed how Wayne Couzens tried to spin pathetic lies after police raided his Kent home over the murder of Sarah Everard.
The 48-year-old officer could be seen in a seven-minute video clip handcuffed on his sofa being interviewed by arresting officers in his front room in Deal on March 9.
Couzens initially claimed to the detectives that he did not know Miss Everard, but moments later concocted a ridiculous fantasy story involving an Eastern European gang who had pressured him after he attempted to ‘rip off’ one of their call girls.
Appearing reasonably relaxed, Couzens told police that he had got into ‘financial s***’ and had been ‘lent on by, I don’t know who they are, an immigrant gang, whatever, and they told me I need to go and pick up girls and give them to them’.
The fictitious traffickers supposedly threatened to harm his family if he did not provide them with a victim, and he felt he had ‘no choice’ but to snatch Miss Everard. 
However, at the start of the video, Couzens suggests he has never met Miss Everard, who was the subject of a major missing persons enquiry at the time.
Couzens is shown a picture of Miss Everard on a mobile phone and is asked: ‘Do you know Sarah’, but he replies: ‘I don’t, no.’ 
Asked if he knew where she is, he says: ‘No’. And asked if he knows anything about what happened to her, Couzens then says: ‘I know that she went missing up in London somewhere about a week ago or so just from what I got on the news.’
While speaking, his cat is seen walking through the room and jumping onto a shelf. Asked if he had personally met her, Miss Everard says: ‘No, not personally, no. ‘Wayne Couzens tells police he was threatened by ‘immigrant gang’

He is then asked if he had had any ‘personal interactions with her’, but says: ‘Why would I have personal interactions with her?’
The detective says that he can’t go into all the evidence, but Couzens replies: ‘I’m sat in handcuffs… so you must have something to say that I know her.’
Pressed by the detective, Couzens tells him: ‘I am in financial s*** and I’ve been lent on by, I don’t know who they are, an immigrant gang, whatever, and they told me I need to go and pick up girls and give them to them.
‘So I said I’ll happily… and it then came through that they are going to harm my family, take them away, use them instead. At that point I had no option to try and find somebody.’
He continues: ‘There was a couple of names, I was told a place to take her, that’s it, that is all I know.’
The detective asks him to tell him about the gang. Couzens says: ‘OK, there was a white Sprinter van. They are between sort of Lenham, Maidstone area that I dropped her off.  
‘I still don’t know, they just, I don’t know, I just parked my car up and then the van come up behind me, flashed me, then they all jumped out and then they [inaudible] this girl.
‘They said ‘you done good’ and I don’t know whether my family’s going to be alright still. They threatened to take my family away from me, so, at that point, I’m doing what I can to protect my family – that’s it. 
‘So all I know it was, roundabout, we could drive there now, I could show you, roughly, I don’t know, Lenham, Maidstone area at all.’
The detective suggests showing him the route on Google Maps, and Couzens says: ‘I drove from Ashford to Maidstone. There’s a roundabout that breaks up, the first big roundabout you come to. 
‘You carry straight over to Maidstone, but instead I went round that roundabout and back up another road and at that point I was flashed and pulled over.  
‘Three guys got out, opened my door, opened that door and pushed me out against the front of the car, took the girl, drove off, that’s it. They said: ‘We’ll be in touch.’ 
‘So I’m here, I’m off work with stress because I’m here to protect my family. I want to be here 24/7 for my family. They come for my family… I’ve got nothing… I’ve got no choice.’
The detective says he will go back over the route with Couzens, but asks him how the supposed gang contacted him or he contacted them. 
Couzens says: ‘I tried to f*** over on one of their call girls and tried to rip her off, so she’s told them and they’ve got me. They just tell me be here, be here, so Hotel Burstin in Folkestone, be here. 
‘So I turned up. But I’ve got no mobile number, and they have [sic] got my mobile number – they’re obviously outside watching, following… I just, honestly.  
‘They’ll come outside, so they’ll be outside here, then they’ll say right, you’ll be in Folkestone this time, or you’re going to be in Ashford this time. That’s it. 
‘There’s no links, telephone numbers, I’m completely on my own, but at the same time being threatened. It had Romanian plates on the van, white Mercedes Sprinter-type van.’
When pressed as to where Sarah Everard was, he said repeatedly that he did not know where she was and that ‘if I could do something to get her back right this minute, I would’, but at the same time he said ‘I’ll do it again tomorrow if it meant saving my family… these guys meant business.’
He claimed he had evidence of that communication in his mobile phone, but when officers examined it they found it had been wiped clean by Couzens.
At the police station, Couzens declined to provide samples of his DNA, saying it was on advice from his solicitor.
And when asked how he had sustained ‘visible scratch marks to his head’ he blamed them on his dog.   
There was a huge search for Sarah Everard after she went missing after visiting a friend before her remains were found in Kent.

Police picked holes in Couzens’ account, before finding petrol, hairbands and latex gloves at his home
An investigation found the killer was lying, with no vehicles like the one he described as belonging to the fake gangsters being seen on CCTV. 
He was taken to Wandsworth Police Station, where he refused to provide intimate samples, the court heard. 
A large number of significant items were then found at his home, prosecutor Mr Little said. These included: 
A roll of adhesive film that had been ordered on February, inside a cardboard box on the floor in a bedroom.
Beige-colored hairbands and a penis pump from a storage unit in the bedroom.
Police kit bag containing a ballistic vest and other items. The contents included a leather handcuff pouch, two police shoulder numbers and one Civil Nuclear Constabulary uniform badges;
A green petrol can, identical in appearance to that purchased by Couzens on the morning of March 4. 
Two opened boxes of off-white large latex gloves, from the workshop and garage respectively.
A pair of Quick Plasti Cuffs and pouch, found in the garage.

Sarah Everard’s badly burned body is found dumped in a pond – as Couzens tells police he strangled her ‘with his police belt’
On March 10, a police search dog team scoured Hoads Wood.
Little described the moment Everard’s body was found partially submerged in a pond inside builders bags.
He said: ‘Several dogs picked up some scent and drew the attention of their handlers to a small pond.
‘Initially only the handles of a green builder’s bag were visible above the surface of the water.
‘Two of the dogs entered the water and indicated interest in the bag. As one of the dogs moved away, the bag appeared to come loose from the floor of the pond, floating upwards and opening up…
‘One of the officers reported that he could see what appeared to be a body in the bag.’
Everard had been badly burned and was still wearing a necklace and gold-colored ear-ring.
Couzens told a psychiatrist he strangled Everard with his police belt, which tallied with the conclusions of a post-mortem examination which found she died from compression of the neck.   
Two days’ later, a burnt fridge was found in the woods. Evidence suggested Everard’s body was inside before being burned.  
Blood matching that of the missing woman’s blood was found in the front passenger seat, rear seats and boot of Couzens’ Seat. There was also evidence of rape. 
On March 10, the killer told a custody nurse that he ‘experiences anxiety and depression’. 
After being re-arrested for Sarah Everard’s murder, he deliberately hit his head on the toilet bowl in his cell, sustained a cut to his head, and was taken to St George’s Hospital. 
He told a nurse he was experiencing ‘suicidal thoughts’. 
When asked how he was feeling in a police interview, he said: ‘I’m in a dark place’. 
When the interview resumed, he answered ‘no comment’ to all questions asked.
On Friday March 12, Couzens self-harmed again by intentionally running into the wall of his cell head first. 
He then banged his head against a wall while waiting for an ambulance.  
Couzens was charged with the murder and kidnap of Sarah Everard on the evening of March 12. 
Little told the court: ‘He remained quiet with a lowered gaze, but answered questions politely when prompted. ‘He was placed under constant watch until he first appeared in the Magistrates’ court the following morning.’
On Thursday March 18, a police diving team found a mobile phone in the River Stour, which runs alongside Fellowship Walk in Sandwich.
The handset was forensically examined, and identified as Everard’s silver Apple iPhone. The SIM card had been removed.

Reading a statement at the Old Bailey, Susan Everard said: ‘Sarah died in horrendous circumstances. I am tormented at the thought of what she endured.
‘Sarah was handcuffed, unable to defend herself, and there was no one to rescue her. She 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. It is a ridiculous reason. It is nonsensical. How could he value a human life so cheaply?
‘I am incandescent with rage at the thought of it. He treated my daughter as if she was nothing and disposed of her as if she was rubbish.’
Mrs Everard said she was ‘repulsed’ by the thought of what Couzens did.
She added: ‘I am outraged that he masqueraded as a policeman in order to get what he wanted. ‘Senior investigator on how Couzens convinced Sarah to get in the car.
Jeremy Everard demanded that her daughter’s killer look at him as he delivered an emotional victim impact statement in court.

He told Couzens: ‘I can never forgive you for what you have done, for taking Sarah away from us.
‘You burnt our daughter’s body – you further tortured us – so that we could not see her again.’
Couzens appeared to shake in the dock as Mr Everard went on: ‘You murdered our daughter and forever broke the hearts of her mother, father, brother, sister, family and her friends.
‘Sarah had so much to look forward to and because of you this has now gone forever.’
Ms Everard’s sister Katie Everard describes Couzens as a ‘monster’
Weeping as she read her statement, Katie Everard said: ‘You used your warrant card to trick my sister into your car. She sat in a car handcuffed for hours.
‘What could she have thought she had done wrong? What lies did you tell her? When did she realize that she wasn’t going to survive the night?
‘My only hope is that she was in a state of shock and that she wasn’t aware of the disgusting things being done to her by a monster. When you forced yourself upon her and raped her.’