Experts warn that police complacency and inadequate reform mean women are still relying on “keys in hand” rather than a functioning system to survive while out in public spaces as new findings into sexual violence are released

View 7 Images

Sarah Everard was walking home from a friend’s house when she was kidnapped by Wayne Couzens(Image: PA)

Five years ago Sarah Everard walked home on a route she knew well having spent the evening with her friend. Tragically, she never made it home.

Sexual predator and off-duty Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens was patrolling the streets in search of a victim when he stumbled across the 33-year-old near Clapham Common. Having tricked her into getting into his car, claiming she was “breaching” Covid 19 rules at the time, he drove her to Kent where he raped and strangled her.

But in a final sickening insult, he burned her remains and dumped them in a pond in woodland, making it impossible for the family to get a final goodbye.

Grieving families – including Sarah Everard’s mother – met with MPs last year to tell of the torment they feel knowing their loved one’s bodies had been violated by their killers. The meeting followed a campaign by Marie McCourt whose 22-year-old daughter, Helen, was murdered in 1988 by pub landlord Peter Simms.

View 7 Images

Wayne Couzens had a concerning history of violence against women that was missed during the vetting process(Image: SWNS)

Her remains have never been found. Families met with Victims Minister Alex Davies-Jones and she vowed to review current legislation. Sarah Everard’s mother, Susan, spoke about how her daughter’s body was set alight and hidden inside bin bags before being submerged in water by twisted Wayne Couzens.

She said: “It was an act of disrespect and cruelty which caused us enormous heartache and rage. Because of what he did, we weren’t able to see Sarah to say goodbye. It was all we had left – a chance to honour her and see her one last time and we were denied this.”

In a Vogue article today, Susan described how she missed the “goodness” of her daughter, and simply missed “talking” to her. ” Most of all, she was a loving and caring young woman; her many friendships are a testament to her lovely nature,” she added.

Minister for Victims and Violence Against Women and Girls, Alex Davies-Jones, said: “It is difficult enough to imagine the horror of a finding out a loved one has been murdered but discovering that their body has been mutilated or maimed causes unspeakable and enduring agony to victims’ families.

“The desecration of a corpse is not currently a criminal offence in England and Wales and that’s why I’m pleased the Law Commission will take forward work to identify and address any gaps in this area, so perpetrators of such harrowing crimes can be effectively punished – helping bring some closure and healing to grieving families.”

Sarah’s murder by a serving police officer exposed deep issues of misogyny within policing and ignited a national outcry that demanded urgent change. But an independent inquiry says many perpetrators are slipping through the cracks due to a lack of action, with police still not doing enough to keep women safe.

Lady Elish Angiolini was commissioned to carry out an inquiry, with the first part published in February 2024. The report found there was a string of “lamentable and repeated” missed policing opportunities to stop Couzens.

The second part released in December, looked at the wider issue of sexually motivated attacks by strangers, and warned that the progress women have been promised has largely failed to materialise.

In a statement, Sarah’s mother Sue spoke powerfully of her grief, saying. “Sarah will always be missing and I will always long for her,” she said. “I go through a turmoil of emotions – sadness, rage, panic, guilt and numbness. They used to come all in one day but as time goes by they are more widely spaced and, to some extent, time blunts the edges.

View 7 Images

Sarah Everard’s death has shone a spotlight on the need for change (Image: PA)

View 7 Images

The inquiry found more than a quarter of police forces have failed to implement basic policies for investigating sexual offences(Image: PA)

“I am not yet at the point where happy memories of Sarah come to the fore. When I think of her, I can’t get past the horror of her last hours. I am still tormented by the thought of what she endured.”

On the evening of March 3, 2021, 33-year-old Sarah Everard was kidnapped in South London as she walked home from a friend’s house near Clapham Common. She was stopped by off-duty Met Police officer Wayne Couzens, 52, who handcuffed her in a fake arrest.

She had left her friend’s house on Leathwaite Road at 9pm and walked along the A205 South Circular Road across the common en route to her Brixton Hill home. She spoke to her boyfriend on the phone for around 15 minutes and agreed to meet him the next day.

At 9.28pm she was seen on a doorbell camera on Poynders Road and four minutes later on the dashcam of a passing police car. It was at 9.34pm that Couzens stopped Sarah in the street outside Poynders Court. He showed her his police warrant card before handcuffing her. It is thought that the 52-year-old accused her of breaching lockdown rules.

After getting into his white Vauxhall Crossland, that Couzens had rented from a vehicle company in Dover, she was driven to Kent. By 11.43pm, Couzens and Sarah were in Dover and had tranferred to his personal car from the rental vehicle.

Between 11.53pm and 00.57am on March 4, his mobile phone connected to cell sites in the Shepherdswell area. It is believed he raped Sarah at some point between midnight and 1.45am. At 2.34am, Couzens was seen purchasing drinks from a Dover petrol station, and it was likely he had strangled Sarah using his police duty belt by this time.

He then drove to Hoad’s Wood near Ashford where he owned a plot of land. He was seen on CCTV in the area between 3.22am and 6.32am before driving back to Dover to switch into his rental car and returning at 8.26am. He disposed of Sarah’s phone in one of the town’s watercourses at 9.21am.

View 7 Images

Sarah Everard’s death sparked national outcry(Image: PA)

Later that day, Sarah’s boyfriend contacted police after she failed to meet him. In the days following the murder, Couzens told colleagues he was suffering from stress and no longer wanted to carry a gun. On March 5, he purchased and filled a petrol container at a service station in Whitfield.

He then returned to Hoad’s Wood and burnt Sarah’s body in a refrigerator. At 1.47pm, he bought two large builder’s bags from B&Q before returning to the site, where he used one of the bags to dispose of Sarah’s remains in a pond.

On March 8, he reported himself ill from work, returning his equipment and police belt and handcuffs. On March 10 at 4.20pm, police found human remains around 100 metres from Couzens’ plot of land. On March 12, the remains were identified as Sarah through dental records.

Thanks to the CCTV footage and DNA, Couzens was arrested on March 9 in Deal. On September 30, 2021, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order.

The Angiolini Inquiry, established after Sarah’s murder, outlined numerous changes needed across policing. But Karen Whybro, a women’s safety consultant, believes reform has been “slow and inadequate.”

View 7 Images

Wayne Couzens was sentenced to life imprisonment(Image: Kent Messenger / SWNS)

Speaking to the Mirror, Karen said that despite the political promises, the core issue of predatory violence towards women remains unaddressed. “I survey women all the time on how safe they feel,” Karen tells the Mirror. “Generally you get a reasonable amount who feel safe during the daytime, but we get around 80 percent here in Essex who feel unsafe when it becomes dark.”

Women are still taught to fear the dark, but Karen challenges the effectiveness of self-defence tactics: “They urge us to make sure your phone is charged, take taxis, cover your drink, avoid walking alone – we’ve been taught this helps, but there’s little evidence it does long-term.”

She stresses that this focus on victim behaviour is fundamentally flawed: “All of these precautionary things we do don’t protect women – it moves them onto the next person. It’s not violence prevention.”

“As far as I can see, there’s very little progress within policing,” she says. “I was looking recently at the Met strategy that was supposed to implement a force-wide programme that hasn’t happened. That would be one of my first questions, why haven’t some of the very simple actions from their own strategy been implemented?”

The persistent culture of sexism remains a “huge issue.” Karen reveals the scale of the problem seen firsthand: “I’ve trained about 500 police officers in Essex Police and 50 percent of their internal disciplinaries were [Violence Against Women and Girls] related offences.”

Crucially, the failure to address lower-level predatory behaviour – like the flashing incidents Couzens was reported for weeks before the murder – is still a massive vulnerability.

View 7 Images

Lady Elish Angiolini, lawyer, who has led the inquiry into Sarah Everard’s death(Image: Getty Images)

“Wayne Couzens was reported for flashing a few weeks before and that wasn’t taken seriously,” said Karen. “That’s a good example of where you need to take these lower-level behaviours more seriously.”

After Sarah’s death, officials found Couzens had exposed himself to female members of staff at McDonald’s in Swanley, Kent, on 14 and 27 February 2021 just days before murdering Sarah but the cases weren’t investigated properly.

Beyond policing, the national response to creating safe public spaces has stalled. In 2021, the crisis was labelled an “epidemic” requiring urgent action, but Karen says, “that’s not happened.”