A former UK policeman jailed for all times for homicide was sentenced to an extra 19 months in jail on Monday for indecent publicity, elevating questions on whether or not he may have been stopped sooner.
Wayne Couzens, 50, is already serving a uncommon whole-life sentence for the kidnap, rape and homicide of London lady Sarah Everard after he snatched her off the streets in March 2021.
London’s Metropolitan Police apologised after the sentencing for not choosing up on the indecent publicity offences earlier than Everard’s homicide.
“Like so many, I want he had been arrested for these offences earlier than he went on to kidnap, rape and homicide Sarah Everard and I’m sorry that he wasn’t,” The Met’s Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Cundy stated.
Couzens admitted to indecently exposing himself to different girls, in November 2020 and February 2021 and betrayed no emotion as he appeared for his sentencing in London’s Outdated Bailey legal courtroom by way of video hyperlink from jail.
“4 months after you uncovered your self to me, you raped and murdered an harmless lady,” certainly one of his victims, a feminine bicycle owner, stated in an announcement to the courtroom.
“There have been alternatives to determine you they usually weren’t taken. I didn’t really feel that, once I reported your crime, it was taken as severely as I felt that it ought to have been,” she stated.
“The horror of what occurred will stay with me for the remainder of my life.”
The bicycle owner was unable to substantiate to police the registration variety of Couzens’ automotive after he stood and uncovered himself to her on a rustic lane in Kent, southeast England.
However the automotive’s particulars had been captured absolutely on CCTV digital camera when he once more uncovered himself to feminine workers of a quick meals restaurant, within the fortnight earlier than he attacked Everard.
Getting away together with his sexual assaults had solely fuelled “a harmful perception in his invincibility”, decide Juliet Could stated in her sentencing.
One other sufferer wept in courtroom as she described emotions of “survivor’s guilt”.
‘Awful crimes’
“I could not help but feel relieved that it wasn’t me, or that it could have been me,” she said.
She said she had difficulty trusting the police after Everard’s murder.
“I do not like to tar everyone with the same brush but it has been difficult not to do so after knowing what he did for a living and knowing I could have come across him in uniform and not known what he was capable of,” she said.
Cundy added that the sentence reflected the impact the “awful crimes” committed by Couzens had on the women he targeted.
“The fact he did this whilst serving as a police officer has brought shame on all [of] us who swore to protect the communities we serve,” Cundy said.
He said the “hurt and trauma” Couzens had inflicted was clear from his victims’ impact statements.
“It is their courage that has been crucial in bringing him to justice and I am sorry for what they have gone through,” he added.
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Since the killing of Everard, other shocking cases involving London police officers have come to light.
David Carrick was jailed for life a month in the past, with a minimal time period of greater than 30 years, for dozens of rapes and sexual assaults stretching again to 2002.
Carrick and Couzens served at one level in the identical armed unit defending MPs and overseas diplomats.
The federal government has commissioned an impartial inquiry to research how the officers escaped detection and London’s Metropolitan Police pressure is pursuing a crackdown in its ranks.
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