Sarah Everard DCI reveals second she discovered Wayne Couzens was Met cop

The detective who led the investigation into the homicide of Sarah Everard has recalled the second she discovered the chief suspect in her disappearance was a Met Police officer.

Detective Chief Inspector Katherine Goodwin was knowledgeable by colleagues that Wayne Couzens labored for the police moments earlier than officers arrived at his home in Kent to query him.

The senior cop mentioned she was pressured to say ‘you are not going to consider this’ as she relayed the chilling information to her superiors within the Metropolitan Police. 

DCI Goodwin revealed stunning second in a brand new BBC documentary about Sarah’s homicide, which accommodates interviews with senior police figures and prosecutors concerned within the case.

It additionally reveals how within the days following Couzens’ sentencing one of many victims of rapist Met officer David Carrick, who served in the identical unit as Sarah’s killer, got here ahead after being impressed by a heartbreaking speech by the advertising and marketing govt’s mom.

The documentary Sarah Everard: The Search For Justice has been two-and-a-half years within the making and can air on Tuesday night on BBC One, days after the third anniversary of her demise.

In the documentary, Miss Goodwin revealed the police found Couzens was suspected of an indecent publicity offence days earlier in Kent, earlier than they discovered he was a serving Metropolitan Police officer.

Miss Goodwin mentioned they found this after Miss Everard and Couzens had been noticed on CCTV footage subsequent to a automotive, which led to his identification.

She mentioned: ‘At that point, Wayne Couzens was a reputation that meant nothing to any of us. So instantly we begin researching the title, additionally the cellphone quantity and the deal with that had been given when he’d employed the automotive.

The detective added that when it was found he was suspected of indecent publicity, it ‘out of the blue modified all the things, as a result of while I might need hoped that Sarah had bought into the automotive with somebody she knew, out of the blue it was clear to me that she’d bought into the automotive of an alleged intercourse offender’.

The officer despatched a workforce to Couzens’ home in Kent to query him and, whereas officers had been en route, a detective bumped into Miss Goodwin’s workplace, shut the door, and instructed her ‘you must hear this’.

A researcher on the cellphone then revealed that Couzens was a serving Met officer.

Miss Goodwin mentioned: ‘I knew that I needed to inform my boss and I can simply keep in mind the shock of getting to simply sit on the ground of the workplace and say to her, ‘You’re not going to consider this, that he is a police officer’.

‘And then the identical questions went via her head as went via my head, ‘Are you positive?’.’

Former Met detective Nick Harvey was the primary to query Couzens and recalled the second he found the suspect was a serving officer whereas driving to his home

He instructed the documentary: ‘The gravity of the entire state of affairs then grew to become extremely clear. You know, the second I instructed the workforce, it simply went silent.’

Mr Harvey knocked on Couzens’ door and mentioned that when he confirmed his warrant card ‘he simply went gray’.

‘Just… all the color simply ran out of his face,’ he mentioned.

Police footage within the documentary confirmed Couzens throughout interrogation.

An officer mentioned to him: ‘People belief us to take care of them. People belief us to assist them. You know, defend and serve, that is what they are saying, is not it? That’s what we’re right here to do. We all took that oath, you included.’

Couzens didn’t reply and saved his head bowed all through the trade.

Prosecutor Tom Little KC recalled his first assembly with Miss Everard’s household, saying: ‘It was instantly clear to me what terrible trauma they’d been put via, however on the identical time, how targeted and resolute they had been by way of seeing that justice was achieved.

‘The deal with the case then grew to become on presenting the true horror of what he’d achieved to the complete extent.’

The documentary additionally explored the aftermath and affect of the case.

While Couzens was initially forged as a ‘unhealthy apple’ and an anomaly within the pressure, his crimes prompted victims to return ahead to report officers throughout the Met and throughout the nation for circumstances of sexual assault, rape and different misconduct.

In the times after Couzens’ sentencing by which he was given a whole-life tariff, a sufferer of David Carrick, an officer serving within the Met Police on the time, got here ahead.

‘Sophie’ spoke within the documentary and mentioned listening to the sufferer affect assertion of Miss Everard’s mom in court docket drove her to talk out.

‘I believe that it was when she was saying about Wayne Couzens, the abuse of energy that he used. Her phrases simply echoed. I simply knew that I needed to report him,’ Sophie mentioned.

Carrick later pleaded responsible to 85 severe offences together with dozens of rapes throughout a 17-year marketing campaign of assaults in opposition to 12 girls. He was ordered to serve at the very least 30 years and is among the UK’s most prolific intercourse offenders.

In the documentary, Miss Goodwin questioned how the police might win again the general public’s belief. ‘I start to marvel then how endemic it’s,’ she mentioned.

Mr Little mentioned: ‘I do not assume the incidences of violence in opposition to girls and women is lowering or reducing in any means. In reality it could seem to me that it is getting worse.’

In the 12 months after Miss Everard’s homicide, 138 girls had been killed by males within the UK or a person was the chief suspect. In the identical 12 months in England and Wales, an estimated 798,000 girls skilled sexual assault and greater than 100,000 had been had been raped or had been a sufferer of tried rape.

The documentary will likely be proven days after a report launched by Lady Elish Angiolini discovered the police repeatedly ignored and missed possibilities to cease Couzens.

The inquiry branded him a ‘predatory intercourse offender and assassin’ who ought to have by no means been a police officer, and laid naked a historical past of alleged sexual offending courting again practically 20 years earlier than he murdered Miss Everard.

Sarah Everard: The Search For Justice will air on Tuesday at 9pm on BBC One and iPlayer.