Category Archives: Wayne Couzens

Home Office breaks pledge to fund sex-crime research after Everard murder

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Government was to look at whether offenders tend to commit increasingly serious crimes after outcry over warning signs with police officer Wayne Couzens

The government has failed to fund research into the escalation of sex crimes, despite promising to do so in the wake of the kidnapping, rape and murder of Sarah Everard.

In 2021, the Home Office pledged to “take forward work looking at the escalation of sexual offending” as part of its plan to tackle violence against women and girls. The plan, which had the tagline “the safety of women and girls across the country is our priority”, was informed by 180,000 public submissions after Everard was killed by serving police officer Wayne Couzens.

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Police ‘could and should have’ stopped him: key points from Wayne Couzens report

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Former firearms officer’s history of alleged sexual offending dated back to 1995, 347-page report finds

Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer and three separate forces “could and should have” stopped him, a damning report by Lady Elish Angiolini has found.

The 51-year-old former firearms officer’s history of alleged sexual offending and predilection for violent and extreme pornography dated back to 1995, it said. Couzens allegedly sexually assaulted a child and attempted to kidnap a woman at knife-point in the years before he abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard on 3 March 2021.

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Jeremy Hunt ‘could adopt Labour tax-raising plans’ – as it happened

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Chancellor reportedly considering energy windfall levy as well as scrapping the non-dom status

The Conservative peer and former MP Stewart Jackson has also made the point about Rishi Sunak’s comments yesterday echoing what Suella Braverman has been saying. (See 9.25am.) He suggests Sunak is a weathercock, “buffeted by events”.

Rishi Sunak is now saying what #SuellaBraverman rightly said four months ago, and for which she was sacked. Tony Benn astutely divided politicians as between signposts and weathercocks. One can think ahead, the other is buffeted by events. We know which one is which, don’t we?

We commend the prime minister on his powerful speech at the CST dinner last night, pledging more funding to protect the Jewish community, outlining a new protocol to safeguard our elected representatives and effectively police protests, and drawing a clear line between democratic dissent and mob intimidation.

The last few months have seen an extreme rise in antisemitic hate in the UK, which has had a significant effect on British Jews. The prime minister’s announcement has made it clear - those bringing chaos to our streets and academic institutions will no longer be allowed to act with impunity.

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‘Size of a small police force’ of Met officers are suspended or on restricted duties

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Scotland Yard says it will take ‘two or more years to root out those who are corrupting policing’

Scotland Yard has said it will take years to root out rogue officers serving in the capital as “the size of a small police force” is suspended or on restricted duties.

Britain’s biggest force revealed that 201 officers were suspended and 860 were on restricted duties, equivalent to the size of Warwickshire or Wiltshire police forces. There are 34,000 police officers in the Metropolitan police.

100 officers have been sacked for gross misconduct in the past year, up by 66% on the normal rate.

201 officers are suspended, up from 69 in September last year.

275 are awaiting a gross misconduct hearing, a significant proportion of which involved alleged violence against women and girls, compared with 136 last year.

The number of reports from the public and officers of alleged misconduct has doubled.

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Former Met PC says she made mistakes on Wayne Couzens flashing case

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Samantha Lee tells hearing she could not have prevented kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard

The former Met police officer accused of botching the Wayne Couzens flashing case has admitted she made some mistakes, but said nothing she could have done would have changed the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard.

Samantha Lee has been accused of conducting an “extremely poor” investigation after Couzens, 50, exposed himself to female staff at a drive-through McDonald’s in Kent on 14 and 27 February 2021, a police disciplinary hearing was told.

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Commissioner vows to clean up Met as force faces biggest crisis since 1970s

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Sir Mark Rowley vows to ‘lift the stone’ – but says rooting out every unfit police officer could take years

Scotland Yard is battling its biggest corruption crisis since the 1970s, its commissioner has warned, as new evidence emerged of the widespread bungling of sexual and domestic abuse claims against officers.

The review of past allegations was triggered by the David Carrick scandal, where the force missed repeated clues that the Metropolitan police firearms officer was a threat to women, while he attacked at least 12 victims over a 20-year period, committing 85 serious crimes.

Checks on 10,000 of the Met’s 50,000 officers and staff against police databases showed 38 cases of possible misconduct and 55 cases of a potential association with a criminal, all of which will be investigated further.

Gross misconduct investigations, which can lead to sackings have risen 62% to 431, with such hearings taking less time to be held.

A total of 144 officers were suspended from duty, double that from September 2022, with 701 on restricted duties.

There has been a 70% increase in those dismissed – or leaving before they could be sacked – in the last six months.

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Met has ‘nowhere to hide’ after damning Casey report, say campaigners

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Sadiq Khan promises to hold police force to account after report highlights institutional misogyny, racism and homophobia

Women’s rights campaigners have warned the damning Casey report into culture at the Met has left the force with “nowhere to hide”.

Dame Louise Casey’s 300-page report found institutional misogyny, racism and homophobia persists within Britain’s biggest police force.

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Revealed: one in 100 police officers in England and Wales faced a criminal charge last year

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Figure has surged over the past 10 years with pressure growing for officers to be sacked on the spot

Shocking figures obtained by the Observer show roughly one in 100 police officers in England and Wales faced criminal charges, including for sexual offences, last year alone.

An Observerinvestigation has found that the Police Federation, the staff association for police officers, received 1,387 claims for legal support from members facing criminal charges in 2022.

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Clear chances missed to identify Wayne Couzens as danger to women

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Police took no action after Couzens exposed himself three times before he went on to murder Sarah Everard

Police missed clear chances to identify Wayne Couzens as a potential sex offender and danger to women before he kidnapped and murdered Sarah Everard, it can finally be revealed.

He exposed himself three times, with witnesses recording either full registration details of vehicles he used, or partial details. But police took no action, leaving Couzens to continue as a serving Metropolitan police officer entrusted with a gun.

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Sarah Everard: former prosecutor to lead inquiry into rape and murder by police officer

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Dame Elish Angiolini to examine policing failures that allowed Wayne Couzens to attack 33-year-old

The Home Office inquiry into the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by a police officer will be chaired by Dame Elish Angiolini, formerly Scotland’s top prosecutor, the department has said.

It will examine whether chances to identify her murderer, Wayne Couzens, as a danger to women before he attacked Everard in March 2021 were missed.

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UK police urged to end sexist ‘canteen culture’ to win back public trust

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Head of Police Federation says forces have a behavioural problem that must be consigned to history

The head of the organisation representing police officers has said a “canteen culture” of sexism and misogyny in UK police forces has to end in order to win back public trust.

John Apter, the chair of the Police Federation of England and Wales, acknowledged forces in the UK had a problem with behaviour where female officers are subjected to “sexist nicknames” and “derogatory remarks”, adding it needed to be “consigned to the history books”.

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Police log 10,000 indecent exposure cases, but fewer than 600 reach court

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Exclusive: England and Wales figures show ‘epidemic’ of flashing against women, after allegations against Wayne Couzens emerged

Women are facing an “epidemic” of flashing and other forms of indecent exposure, with police in England and Wales recording more than 10,000 cases last year but taking fewer than 600 people to court over them, Guardian analysis reveals.

The findings come after Wayne Couzens was reported for repeated instances of alleged indecent exposure in the years and days before he raped and murdered Sarah Everard, but faced no action. Police accepted they may have had enough clues to identify the police officer as a threat to women sooner, amid fears that flashing is a gateway to other sex crimes.

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Met officers investigated over Couzens WhatsApp group are still on duty

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Exclusive: under-fire force places two police officers on restricted duties, while other forces suspend officers

Two Metropolitan police officers allegedly involved in a chat group that included Wayne Couzens that swapped alleged misogynistic and racist messages have been left on duty after being placed under criminal investigation, the Guardian has learned.

The two Met officers are said to have been part of a WhatsApp group involving constables from three forces that is under investigation after Couzens’s phone was seized following his arrest for the murder of Sarah Everard in March.

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