Mugshot of Wayne Couzens; picture of Sarah Everard.
A police constable in the United Kingdom was finally fired on Friday for kidnapping, raping, and murdering marketing executive Sarah Everard, 33. Wayne Couzens, 48, pleaded guilty to charges in hearings on June 8 and July 9.
“Couzens has betrayed everything we, the police, stand for and following his guilty pleas and convictions I have dismissed him today,” said Assistant Commissioner Helen Ball of the London Metropolitan Police. “All of us in the Met are horrified, sickened and angered by this man’s crimes. Sarah was a young woman who had her life cruelly snatched away from her. I know she is sorely missed by so many people and our thoughts remain with her loved ones. We are so profoundly sorry.”
When Couzens pleaded guilty to murder this month, police said that he had not been paid as an officer since his guilty pleas on June 8 for kidnapping and rape.
“This was as soon as legally possible,” they said in a statement online. “Internal misconduct procedures are now being progressed.”
Everard was reportedly last seen leaving a friend’s apartment on March 3 at approximately 9 p.m. and recorded on a resident’s doorbell camera at 9:28 p.m. Her boyfriend reported her missing on March 4.
Remembering “bright and beautiful” Sarah Everard
Daughter, sister, friend and colleague https://t.co/bqeEoBFr36
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) July 9, 2021
“It will be obvious to all that behaving in this way, that is in committing these appalling crimes, and being convicted of a total of three of the most serious possible criminal offences in respect of this behaviour, discredits the police service and undermines confidence in it,” wrote Ball in her report. “But it is right that I make it very clear that I find the facts of this case proved on the basis of the records of the pleas and the convictions and that these facts amount to a breach of the Standards of Professional Behaviour that are required of police officers.”
[Mugshot of Couzens via London Metropolitan Police; image of Everard via Lambeth Police]
