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Sarah Everard Case: Policeman arrested and charged

Vixen

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Vixen
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A serving police officer in the diplomatic branch has been arrested and charged with the suspected kidnap and murder of a missing woman, Sarah Everard. Ms Everard, 33, was last seen a week ago in Clapham, south London, on her way home from a friend's house. Remains hae now been found in woodlands, yet to be formally identified.


3 March: Sarah Everard vanishes after leaving a friend's house on Leathwaite Road, Clapham, about 21:00 GMT
5 March: Met Police are "increasingly concerned" for Ms Everard and make an appeal on Twitter
6 March: Ms Everard's family say her disappearance is "totally out of character" as officers search Clapham Common's ponds
7 March: Footage taken from a doorbell camera shows Ms Everard walking alone along the A205 Poynder Road towards Tulse Hill at 21:30. Police say it is unclear whether or not she reached her house in Brixton
8 March: More than 120 calls are made from the public on the case and more than 750 homes are visited as part of the investigation
9 March: A serving officer is arrested in Kent along with a woman who is held on suspicion of assisting an offender
10 March: Met Police Assistant Commissioner Nick Ephgrave describes the arrest as "shocking and deeply disturbing". Extensive searches are carried out in parts of Kent. Later in the evening Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said human remains have been found in a woodland in Kent
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BBC
 
Very serious stuff, the officer hasn't been tried yet, but a body has been found.
They must have a fair bit of evidence already.

I feel so sorry for Sarah's family and her friends.
 
Vixen said:
A serving police officer in the diplomatic branch has been arrested and charged with the suspected kidnap and murder of a missing woman, Sarah Everard. Ms Everard, 33, was last seen a week ago in Clapham, south London, on her way home from a friend's house. Remains hae now been found in woodlands, yet to be formally identified.


BBC
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He hasn't been charged with anything yet.

Fell at the first hurdle. Again.


ETA: for clarity, he's currently been arrested on suspicion of abduction and murder, and is being questioned accordingly.
 
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LondonJohn said:
He hasn't been charged with anything yet.

Fell at the first hurdle. Again.

ETA: for clarity, he's currently been arrested on suspicion of abduction and murder, and is being questioned accordingly.
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To quote a wise man:

Prince Humperdinck said:
A technicality that will shortly be remedied.
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It sounds like a pretty sure thing at this point. They've arrested him, are holding him, and arrested a woman for assisting him. The people in charge are speaking as if he's already been charged, at least that's the impression I got from the article.
 
It makes my blood run cold to think just how close this man was to being undiscovered. It was apparently just a chance glimpse on a passing bus' cctv camera and another driver's dash cam, that led to police homing in on Couzens. The other thing is how his wife - under suspicion of helping an offender - looks strikingly similar to Sarah.

Cops moved in on married dad-of-two PC Couzens after a car linked to him was allegedly spotted on a motorist’s dashcam near to where Sarah was last seen on the night of Wednesday, March 3.
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SUN

Who would ever have suspected a diplomatic service police officer licensed to carry a gun at all times could be linked to Sarah's disappearance?
 
Vixen said:
It makes my blood run cold to think just how close this man was to being undiscovered. It was apparently just a chance glimpse on a passing bus' cctv camera and another driver's dash cam, that led to police homing in on Couzens. The other thing is how his wife - under suspicion of helping an offender - looks strikingly similar to Sarah.

SUN

Who would ever have suspected a diplomatic service police officer licensed to carry a gun at all times could be linked to Sarah's disappearance?
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He is male so of course he is suspect.
 
Darat said:
He is male so of course he is suspect.
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A male cop committing violence against a woman is about the least surprising story possible. Perhaps things are different in the UK, but US police are prolific domestic and sexual abusers.
 
SuburbanTurkey said:
A male cop committing violence against a woman is about the least surprising story possible. Perhaps things are different in the UK, but US police are prolific domestic and sexual abusers.
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Yes. As the (pretty true) aphorism goes: a lot of men who join the police are precisely the sort of men who should not be allowed to join the police.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that men who opt for a job which permits them to gain control (including physical control) and power over other people...... might perhaps be the type of men who (compared with the overall set of all men) would have a higher predisposition to violence against women.

I guess what might be more surprising is that - contrary to the hackneyed thriller plots about killer police officers who know all the tricks to getting away with it by virtue of their jobs - he was caught so quickly. (Assuming he gets charged, and then gets convicted in a fair trial....)
 
By the way, the UK tabloid press - as they do so very often - are acting entirely improperly by releasing the details of this man's name and occupation at this point.

When someone is arrested, all the information that should be released to the public - outside of exceptional circumstances linked to immediate concerns over public protection - should be the person's gender, their rough age, and their rough address. If/when the arrested person is charged, then their name and address are released to the public. Not before. And there are very good reasons why this should be the correct process.

From the tabloids' perspective, there's an equally good - though improper - reason why they are so keen on publishing the names of arrested people like this, prior to any charges being brought. It's because they can more-or-less write anything they like about the person in this period: interviews with neighbours, stripping their Facebook page of photos and other info about them, and so on.

However, once the person in question is actually charged - which is the first point at which, remember, the person's name should even be publicly disclosed - the media are forbidden from that point onwards from publishing anything other than the person's name and the crime(s) with which they've been charged.... up until they can start reporting on trial proceedings.

So the UK media (well, certain elements of the UK Media - big hello to the Sun, the Mail, and Sky News!) improperly exploit the post-arrest-but-pre-charging phase to publish as much as they possibly can about the person in question. As soon as the person is charged, literally all of this will stop immediately (under threat of a contempt of court hearing). It's a grubby, underhand practice, and it's in nobody's interest: all it can do is increase the risk of a successful defence claim wrt a fair trial; and if the police do think that it's in the public interest to release details of an arrested person pre-charging, then that's something they can & should do themselves.

I wonder if it'll ever stop? Or, more accurately, I wonder whether any parliament will ever introduce legislation to force it to stop?
 
Nessie said:
If he did kill her, he is the fourth UK police officer to have killed a woman in the past 3 years.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/59130...anne-murder-police-inspector-jailed-19-years/
https://news.sky.com/story/married-police-officer-jailed-for-10-years-for-killing-his-lover-12116765
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-51548574
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Two of those are domestic killings and the other is that Brehmer case in which he brutally killed the woman he was having an affair with in a car (and only got ten years). These tend to be far more common than supposed random abductions. I can see why the police had a theory that whilst Sarah was walking home - late at night in the midst of a lockdown - he stopped and perhaps waved his ID and either tricked her or ordered her into his hired car. This was the car caught on a bus CCTV, so after that point police were able to track the vehicle via various traffic cameras all the way to his home.

Whilst the police claim this type of crime - if it happened - is exceedingly rare but I don't think it's that rare (think of black can driver Warboys) although most women manage to escape either by guile or by wiles.

It's too much to ask for men to be under curfew from 6:00pm, as suggested by a peer as that would be totally unworkable, as criminals won't care about rules and curfews.
 
LondonJohn said:
Yes. As the (pretty true) aphorism goes: a lot of men who join the police are precisely the sort of men who should not be allowed to join the police.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that men who opt for a job which permits them to gain control (including physical control) and power over other people...... might perhaps be the type of men who (compared with the overall set of all men) would have a higher predisposition to violence against women.

I guess what might be more surprising is that - contrary to the hackneyed thriller plots about killer police officers who know all the tricks to getting away with it by virtue of their jobs - he was caught so quickly. (Assuming he gets charged, and then gets convicted in a fair trial....)
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According to a newspaper report these CNC 'nuclear' officers are especially picked after rigorous testing for their 'calm state of mind' To me that reads, someone who has no problem pulling a trigger in cold-blood, but not someone with a hairline temper who might pull a trigger out of fright or anger.

So his neighbours described him as calm when he was arrested. So maybe there is a fine line between those who are heroic fighter pilots and bombers in times of war, who would be cold-blooded psychopathic SOB's in peace time.
 
LondonJohn said:
By the way, the UK tabloid press - as they do so very often - are acting entirely improperly by releasing the details of this man's name and occupation at this point.

When someone is arrested, all the information that should be released to the public - outside of exceptional circumstances linked to immediate concerns over public protection - should be the person's gender, their rough age, and their rough address. If/when the arrested person is charged, then their name and address are released to the public. Not before. And there are very good reasons why this should be the correct process.

From the tabloids' perspective, there's an equally good - though improper - reason why they are so keen on publishing the names of arrested people like this, prior to any charges being brought. It's because they can more-or-less write anything they like about the person in this period: interviews with neighbours, stripping their Facebook page of photos and other info about them, and so on.

However, once the person in question is actually charged - which is the first point at which, remember, the person's name should even be publicly disclosed - the media are forbidden from that point onwards from publishing anything other than the person's name and the crime(s) with which they've been charged.... up until they can start reporting on trial proceedings.

So the UK media (well, certain elements of the UK Media - big hello to the Sun, the Mail, and Sky News!) improperly exploit the post-arrest-but-pre-charging phase to publish as much as they possibly can about the person in question. As soon as the person is charged, literally all of this will stop immediately (under threat of a contempt of court hearing). It's a grubby, underhand practice, and it's in nobody's interest: all it can do is increase the risk of a successful defence claim wrt a fair trial; and if the police do think that it's in the public interest to release details of an arrested person pre-charging, then that's something they can & should do themselves.

I wonder if it'll ever stop? Or, more accurately, I wonder whether any parliament will ever introduce legislation to force it to stop?
Click to expand...

I think what happened here, is because Sarah was officially 'missing' (and I don't think they have identified the body as hers, yet [it might not be as it is said to be in a 'poor state']) and they had been stalking this guy for a couple of days to see if he would lead them to her - having captured his car on CCTV at the same time Sarah Everard was last seen on someone's doorbell camera - they were spotted by his neighbours sitting in an unmarked car outside his house (so not very discreet, then). Because these neighbours tipped off the press about all of the police activity, some how his name got leaked when police swooped in to arrest him.
 
This is turning into a complete cluster .... for the Metropolitan Police;

https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/ne...mps-officers-after-indecent-exposure-reported

The Met have been referred to the Independent Office for Police Conduct regarding

1 - "whether Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) officers responded appropriately to a report of indecent exposure" relating to the arrested officer.
2 - "two conduct referrals relating to kidnap/murder and indecent exposure allegations against the arrested officer should remain under local investigation by the force."
3 - "a mandatory referral in relation to the actions of police after they received a report that Sarah Everard was missing."
4 - "A fifth mandatory referral was received from the MPS today in relation to police contact with the arrested officer who was treated in hospital after sustaining a head injury while in custody"
 
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Nessie said:
This is turning into a complete cluster .... for the Metropolitan Police;

https://www.policeconduct.gov.uk/ne...mps-officers-after-indecent-exposure-reported

The Met have been referred to the independent Office for Police Conduct regarding

1 - "whether Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) officers responded appropriately to a report of indecent exposure" relating to the arrested officer.
2 - "two conduct referrals relating to kidnap/murder and indecent exposure allegations against the arrested officer should remain under local investigation by the force."
3 - "a mandatory referral in relation to the actions of police after they received a report that Sarah Everard was missing."
4 - "A fifth mandatory referral was received from the MPS today in relation to police contact with the arrested officer who was treated in hospital after sustaining a head injury while in custody"
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Re no. 4: what happened there? Was he assaulted in police custody do you think, or might have been self-harm?

ETA: He was in his cell alone and caught on CCTV.

The Met also made a mandatory referral to the IOPC after Couzens was today rushed to hospital for treatment after he sustained a head injury while in a cell alone.

A statement added the suspect was being monitored by CCTV at the time, and had received immediate first aid.
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DM
 
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Vixen said:
Re no. 4: what happened there? Was he assaulted in police custody do you think, or might have been self-harm?
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No idea. It could be an assault, self harm or he just tripped. It could be quite minor, but a head injury always results in a hospital check up.

I see the update re CCTV, it is normal for anyone in custody regarding a murder to be kept on constant obs. He could just have fallen in the cell.
 
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Looks like Sarah Everard was at the same college at Durham as my kid, graduating one year after him, except a different subject. He liked to volunteer to help with the freshers so their paths may well have met.

Everard later studied human geography at St Cuthbert’s College at Durham University from 2005 to 2008 before moving to London and starting work as a marketing account manager. Like many graduates, she chose to live in Brixton, a popular flatshare hotspot among young professionals. Pictures show her holding a medal in running kit, a popular activity on nearby Clapham Common, and she was photographed wearing orange On running shoes and green Bluetooth headphones on the evening she went missing.
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Standard

I have a friend who loves nothing better than to walk across the length and breadth o London. It brings it home to me that I rarely felt safe in London after dark, although I usually walked to work, except in winter, when it got dark early. Some years ago, I had a stalker who used to suddenly pull up at the kerb alongside me to the extent I couldn't go out without a male companion.
 
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