Wayne Couzens gets another 19 months for sex crimes before Sarah Everard murder
Wayne Couzens has been sentenced to 19 months’ jail for exposing himself to women three times before he murdered Sarah Everard.
The former Metropolitan Police officer, 50, is already serving a whole life sentence for abducting Sarah as she walked home before raping her and strangling her in March 2021.
The new sentence will not affect his punishment as he has no chance of parole and will die behid bars.
But the judge said it will ‘serve as a public recognition of the fact that offences have been committed’ and mark the ‘courage and resilience’ of the victims who helped convict him.
The hearing also revealed new details of Couzens’ offending which raise further questions over whether police missed chances to stop him before he murdered 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah.
The court heard he was supposed to be working from home at the time of the first incident of indecent exposure.
In November 2020, he emerged naked from a woodland near his home in Deal, Kent, and masturbated while staring at a woman who cycled past.
The ‘scared and shaken’ woman told an off-duty female police officer who happened to be walking nearby and said she would investigate, the court heard.
The victim, who saw Couzens’ black Seat parked up the road, also reported the incident online to Kent police.
But inquiries hit a dead end as there was no number plate on the vehicle, the court heard.
Tom Little KC, prosecuting, said on Monday that Couzens was due on a 8am to 4pm shift at the time, adding: ‘It follows that he was on duty at the time of the offence.’
Passing sentence, Mrs Justice May added: ‘The fact that no police came to find him or his black car to question him about these incidents can only have served to confirm and strengthen in the defendants mind a dangerous belief in his invincibility, in his power, sexually, to dominate and abuse women wihout being stopped.’
After two further incidents where he showed his penis to staff at a drive-thru in February 2021, he was interviewed under caution and admitted to using the restaurant regularly.
But he denied exposing himself, and no further action was taken.
Neither incident was reported to police until the day after Couzens’ second visit, when staff recalled the Seat’s full number plate and identified it from CCTV.
The women were left ‘shaken, upset and angry’ when he showed them his erect penis from the driver seat of his car while paying for food, the court heard.
The court was told he also used his own credit card to pay, while traffic cameras and cell data placed his car in the area at the time of both incidents.
Couzens pleaded guilty to three counts of indecent exposure in February.
He had denied three other indecent exposure charges relating to three alleged further incidents in 2015 and 2021. The charges are expected to be left on court file.
An independent inquiry has been opened into Couzens’ earlier sex crimes and whether police missed chances to stop him before he murdered Sarah Everard.
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