London police on Friday charged a fellow officer with kidnap and murder, hours after confirming that a body discovered in woodland was that of a missing woman in a high-profile case that has shocked the UK.
Wayne Couzens, 48, a serving officer in the Metropolitan Police’s elite diplomatic protection unit, was charged with killing 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard, the force said.
She vanished while walking home in south London on the evening of March 3, with Couzens’ arrest a week later sending shockwaves through the Met — and the wider public — and triggering an angry debate about women’s safety.
Photo: AP
“Following a referral of evidence by the Metropolitan Police related to the death of Sarah Everard, the Crown Prosecution Service has authorized the police to charge Wayne Couzens with murder and kidnapping,” Rosemary Ainslie of the service said in a short statement.
Couzens, who was arrested late on Tuesday in Kent, southeast England — where he lives and Everand’s remains were found the following day — was due to appear yesterday at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.
His charging came several hours after police late on Wednesday confirmed that the body, found in an area of woodland in Ashford, Kent, had been identified as Everard.
Officials also revealed that Couzens had again been admitted to hospital on Friday with a head injury, a day after being briefly hospitalized for a similar injury sustained while “alone in his cell.”
The Independent Office for Police Conduct, a watchdog dealing with policing complaints, is probing the Met’s handling of the case, including how Couzens ended up requiring hospital treatment.
The watchdog has said it would also probe whether Met officers responded appropriately to an accusation of indecent exposure against him, which occurred several days before Everard disappeared.
He was alleged to have twice exposed himself at a south London fast-food restaurant on Feb. 28.
Police said their investigation remained ongoing, and was “drawing on expertise and skills from hundreds of colleagues across the Met.”
The case has sparked widespread anger in the UK, with Labour Party Lawmaker Jess Phillips on Thursday reading out the names in Parliament of 118 women and girls killed in the UK over the past year.
“Dead women is a thing we’ve all just accepted as part of our daily lives,” Phillips said, reading the names of victims whose killings involve a man charged or convicted.
“Killed women are not vanishingly rare. Killed women are common,” she added.
In an unusual step, which the Met said it was taking “in the interests of clarity about these exceptional events,” officials disclosed details about Couzens’ employment.
He joined the Met, the UK’s biggest police force, in September 2018 and was posted to a response team covering parts of southeast London.
He then moved to the parliamentary and diplomatic protection command, an armed unit, in February last year.
“His primary role was on uniformed patrol duties of diplomatic premises, mainly a range of embassies,” police said.
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