Wayne Couzens ought to by no means have been given a job, inquiry finds

Sarah Everard’s killer Wayne Couzens ought to by no means have been given a job as a police officer and probabilities to cease the sexual predator had been repeatedly ignored and missed, an inquiry discovered right now.

Police ‘repeatedly failed’ to identify warning indicators about his ‘unsuitability for workplace’, a damning report concluded amid fears many extra girls and ladies may have been victims of Couzens.

Publishing her findings this morning, inquiry chairwoman Lady Elish Angiolini warned and not using a radical overhaul of policing practices and tradition, there’s ‘nothing to cease one other Couzens working in plain sight’.

Three totally different police forces ‘may and will’ have stopped Couzens from getting a job as an officer, she stated, as she recognized a listing of failings in how he was recruited and vetted, and the way allegations in opposition to him had been investigated.

Miss Everard’s household stated in response they imagine the 33-year-old advertising and marketing govt died as a result of Couzens was a police officer, including: ‘She would by no means have gotten right into a stranger’s automotive.’

Wayne Couzens won’t ever be launched from jail after he kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard in March 2021

The homicide of Ms Everard, a advertising and marketing govt, prompted fury on the failure to guard girls in opposition to male violence 

Branding Couzens a ‘predatory intercourse offender and assassin’, the inquiry laid naked a historical past of alleged sexual offending courting again practically 20 years earlier than the off-duty armed Metropolitan Police officer kidnapped Miss Everard in March 2021.

According to the report, during the last two years the inquiry uncovered proof Couzens was accused of a string of different incidents of sexual abuse, together with a ‘very critical sexual assault of a kid barely into her teenagers’.

The findings recognized not less than 5 incidents which weren’t reported to police, with Lady Elish saying she believes there could possibly be extra victims.

Setting out a raft of suggestions to ‘be sure that one thing like this will by no means occur once more’, Lady Elish stated: ‘Wayne Couzens ought to by no means have been a police officer. And, and not using a important overhaul, there’s nothing to cease one other Couzens working in plain sight.

‘Now is the time for change.’

She urged ‘all these in authority in each police drive within the nation’ to learn the report and ‘take instant motion’.

Among the measures, Lady Elish referred to as for an pressing evaluate of indecent publicity expenses in opposition to serving officers and stated studies of the crime must be taken critically.

Miss Everard’s mom Sue, father Jeremy, sister Katie and brother James stated in a press release: ‘It is apparent that Wayne Couzens ought to by no means have been a police officer. Whilst holding a place of belief, in relative he was a serial intercourse offender.

‘Warning indicators had been neglected all through his profession and alternatives to confront him had been missed.

‘We imagine that Sarah died as a result of he was a police officer – she would by no means have gotten right into a stranger’s automotive.’

Couzens – who won’t ever be launched from jail – used his standing as a police officer to trick Miss Everard into pondering he may arrest her for breaking lockdown guidelines in place in the course of the coronavirus pandemic.

After the harrowing killing, it emerged there had been considerations about Couzens’s behaviour whereas he was a police officer, with studies he was nicknamed ‘the rapist’.

He joined Kent Police as a particular constable in 2002, grew to become an officer with the civil nuclear constabulary in 2011 after which moved to the Met in 2018.

Couzens indecently uncovered himself thrice earlier than the homicide, together with twice at a drive-through fast-food restaurant in Kent within the days previous to the killing.

He was not caught regardless of driving his personal automotive and utilizing his personal bank card on the time.

Then-Met police constable Samantha Lee was sacked and barred from being a police officer after it was discovered she had not correctly investigated the incidents.

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

Ordered by then residence secretary Priti Patel, the inquiry tasked with how Couzens got here to be a police officer and was capable of perform the homicide has up to now value £2.9 million, in response to figures to September final 12 months.

The first part of the inquiry thought-about proof overlaying a 20-year interval, reviewing greater than 100,000 pages of paperwork and finishing up 144 interviews, prompting 76 conclusions and making 16 suggestions for enchancment.

The inquiry continues in two elements, wanting on the crimes of David Carrick and wider issues throughout the police within the wake of each instances.