• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Sarah Everard Case: Policeman arrested and charged

LondonJohn said:
You do realise that conviction for a crime has absolutely nothing to with any putative sentence associated with that crime, don't you? That instead, conviction for a crime is solely and exclusively concerned with whether the trier(s) of the crime believe that there's sufficient evidence to prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?
Click to expand...

Actually, there is some evidence that a jury is more likely to convict if the sentence is likely to be lighter. Whether that applies in this particular case is a different matter.

Logically, you are correct, but that is ignoring the way humans actually behave.
 
More food for thought:
Wayne Couzens' confidence and experience he showed in killing and then disposing of the body of Sarah Everard means he should be a suspect in other unsolved cases, a top criminologist says.

The way the police officer organised the kidnapping, rape and murder suggests that he has committed crimes before, according to Professor David Wilson.
Click to expand...
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/wayne-couzens-has-struck-before-25110008

So he may have had other victims who weren't seen on CCTV.
 
LondonJohn said:
Because:

1) She believed - correctly, as it happened - that she was being arrested by a bona fide police officer;

2) It's standard practice to place handcuffs on a person who's being arrested - it makes it considerably more difficult for the person to run away, pull out a knife, throw a punch, throw away packages of drugs, stick the officer with a dirty needle, etc. Even a woman.

3) She can have had no hint whatsoever - at the time she was handcuffed and placed in his car - that she was about to experience anything other than being driven to a local police station, booked, and fined (or bailed). She certainly couldn't/wouldn't have had any inkling at all of the horrific fate that in fact awaited her.
4) It's easy to make the mistake - as I think you've done here - of using hindsight to misapply logic/reason/intent to people's actions. It's a bit like people saying wrt the BTK killings: "Why did they let him tie them up?" - but it's even more of a mistake wrt the Everard case, because she thought she was in the custody of a well-intending police officer.
Click to expand...

You are certain you can see into the mind of a young woman stopped in her track by a menacing figure whilst just walking home?

This is surely part of the problem. Men thinking a woman's world is the same as their world.
 
Vixen said:
You are certain you can see into the mind of a young woman stopped in her track by a menacing figure whilst just walking home?

This is surely part of the problem. Men thinking a woman's world is the same as their world.
Click to expand...


Oh jeeeeez.

What's with the term "menacing figure"? She was stopped by somebody who a) she believed was a police officer, and b) actually was a police officer.

Surely even you can understand the difference between the man she encountered and your "menacing figure"?

If a "menacing figure" had stopped her, and had told her he was going to handcuff her and place her in his car..... then of course she'd (almost certainly) have shouted to attract attention and run away.

But that's not what she encountered, was it? She encountered a (genuine) police officer, who told her - very plausibly, in the circumstances - that he was arresting her for breaches of covid laws.

Lastly, perhaps.... as a woman.... you'd tell me what you would have done if you'd been in Sarah Everard's shoes that night? (And remember, I'm asking you very specifically and solely to consider the stop and the "arrest" itself, with no consideration as to how things evolved once she was cuffed and in the car.)
 
Bob001 said:
More food for thought:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/wayne-couzens-has-struck-before-25110008

So he may have had other victims who weren't seen on CCTV.
Click to expand...


Ahhh good old "top criminologist" David Wilson.

The latest in the Paul Britton school of criminal profilers.....

Not to mention the fact that - as I understand it - he did things in the build-up to this crime that a) he hadn't done before and b) were integral to the way he committed the crime - most notably hiring a car (and setting it up so that he could transfer from his own car into the hire car and back again on a quiet road outside Dover), and buying the roll of adhesive carpet protector on amazon.

It wouldn't be at all surprising if he'd previously committed crimes of lesser seriousness (and of course we already know that there's prima facie evidence of him committing indecent exposure, which might reasonably be viewed as a "gateway crime" to his later kidnap/rape/murder), and it also wouldn't be surprising if he'd previously acted corruptly in his position as a police officer.

But as for him having carried out prior crimes of any similarity to this one (ie ones in which he abducted, raped, and/or murdered), I'd be very doubtful. However, that sort of non-sensational opinion doesn't sell newspapers. And nor does it pay David Wilson's mortgage.


ETA: and of course everyone involved gets to immunise themselves - intellectually and legally - by employing the classic construction (so beloved of the Daily Mail as well as here in the Mirror) of couching things in "could have..." "might have..." "should be investigated for..." terms.
 
Last edited:
Matthew Best said:
I'm not saying that jury isn't still out on this issue, but pointing to a study from 1994 to refute one from 2018 isn't a great way to demonstrate that.
Click to expand...


I'm really not sure what the relative dates of the two studies have to do with things here. It's not as if this is an area where (for instance) scientific advancements could/would have given more recent studies an advantage over older ones.
 
Matthew Best said:
I'm not saying that jury isn't still out on this issue, but pointing to a study from 1994 to refute one from 2018 isn't a great way to demonstrate that.
Click to expand...

A big difference in methodology in these studies. Mock juror studies allow more experimental control (in this case, over the amount of evidence needed to convict) but don't carry the same consequences as real-life cases since nobody is actually going to be punished. It's been shown that mock juries are more likely to convict than real juries, for example, when they sat in on an actual case and heard the same evidence. The more recent study is two natural experiments with better ecological validity, but more uncontrolled variables.
 
Last edited:
LondonJohn said:
Oh jeeeeez.

What's with the term "menacing figure"? She was stopped by somebody who a) she believed was a police officer, and b) actually was a police officer.

Surely even you can understand the difference between the man she encountered and your "menacing figure"?

If a "menacing figure" had stopped her, and had told her he was going to handcuff her and place her in his car..... then of course she'd (almost certainly) have shouted to attract attention and run away.

But that's not what she encountered, was it? She encountered a (genuine) police officer, who told her - very plausibly, in the circumstances - that he was arresting her for breaches of covid laws.

Lastly, perhaps.... as a woman.... you'd tell me what you would have done if you'd been in Sarah Everard's shoes that night? (And remember, I'm asking you very specifically and solely to consider the stop and the "arrest" itself, with no consideration as to how things evolved once she was cuffed and in the car.)
Click to expand...

That doesn't mean she didn't have all sorts of alarm bells going off and hoping it was all going to be OK. It is not as if she has been apprehended committing a crime is it? OK, so she may have breached lockdown rules but that is hardly an arrestable on the spot offence, The first step is to check her name and ID, not slap handcuffs behind her back. No way can I believe she was relaxed and trusting at that point especially when shoved into a plain car.

What would I have done? I would have tried to talk my way out of it and resisted being handcuffed or persuaded to get into an unmarked car.
 
Last edited:
Vixen said:
That doesn't mean she didn't have all sorts of alarm bells going off and hoping it was all going to be OK. It is not as if she has been apprehended committing a crime is it? OK, so she may have breached lockdown rules but that is hardly an arrestable on the spot offence, The first step is to check her name and ID, not slap handcuffs behind her back. No way can I believe she was relaxed and trusting at that point especially when shoved into a plain car.
Click to expand...


Firstly you're doing your usual trick of employing inappropriate and unsubstantiated terms such as "slap handcuffs" and "shoved into a... car" - presumably because you think it enhances the credibility and righteousness of your claim. It doesn't. It does the opposite.

Secondly, yes, ostensibly she was apprehended committing a crime. And yes, all crimes carry with them the possibility of arrest.

Thirdly, on what basis are you claiming that he didn't ask her her name and address and check her ID? Are you labouring under the misapprehension that he got out of his car, walked up to her, showed her his warrant card, and handcuffed her straight away?



What would I have done? I would have tried to talk my way out of it and resisted being handcuffed or persuaded to get into an unmarked car.
Click to expand...


I think you're speaking entirely with the benefit of hindsight. And, by doing so, I think you're unconsciously - and ironically - attaching some level of blame to Sarah Everard, since you're claiming that you'd have been more "properly" aware than she was, and that this would have enabled you to act differently from the way she acted.
 
Last edited:
Elaedith said:
A big difference in methodology in these studies. Mock juror studies allow more experimental control (in this case, over the amount of evidence needed to convict) but don't carry the same consequences as real-life cases since nobody is actually going to be punished. It's been shown that mock juries are more likely to convict than real juries, for example, when they sat in on an actual case and heard the same evidence. The more recent study is two natural experiments with better ecological validity, but more uncontrolled variables.
Click to expand...


Yes. I think there are systemic faults and benefits to both. But seeing as this is a peripheral facet of a peripheral (at best) topic wrt the OP of this thread, I'm happy to park it there.
 
It's a leap from flashing to rape and murder in space of a week,assuming he hasnt done this before.
 
LondonJohn said:
Firstly you're doing your usual trick of employing inappropriate and unsubstantiated terms such as "slap handcuffs" and "shoved into a... car" - presumably because you think it enhances the credibility and righteousness of your claim. It doesn't. It does the opposite.

Secondly, yes, ostensibly she was apprehended committing a crime. And yes, all crimes carry with them the possibility of arrest.

Thirdly, on what basis are you claiming that he didn't ask her her name and address and check her ID? Are you labouring under the misapprehension that he got out of his car, walked up to her, showed her his warrant card, and handcuffed her straight away?






I think you're speaking entirely with the benefit of hindsight. And, by doing so, I think you're unconsciously - and ironically - attaching some level of blame to Sarah Everard, since you're claiming that you'd have been more "properly" aware than she was, and that this would have enabled you to act differently from the way she acted.
Click to expand...

Not at all. The point I was making here is that maybe she had no means of escaping this man's clutches no matter whose advice she might have taken. For example, ask to ring his station, study up on police procedures. Fact is, she was snared as a bird is by a fowler. So, the idea that there was a solution to her not having been attacked in this manner, seems to me to be evading the real issue of male violence.
 
Vixen said:
Not at all. The point I was making here is that maybe she had no means of escaping this man's clutches no matter whose advice she might have taken. For example, ask to ring his station, study up on police procedures. Fact is, she was snared as a bird is by a fowler. So, the idea that there was a solution to her not having been attacked in this manner, seems to me to be evading the real issue of male violence.
Click to expand...


Firstly, as I and others have already pointed out in this thread: had she felt she had the right to obtain third-party verification (eg by contacting 999), the odds are that he wouldn't have gone through with his horrific plans - for reasons which ought to be obvious.

And secondly, the post of yours to which I'd been originally responding (and which therefore kicked off this exchange) framed things in terms of Everard "being stopped by a menacing figure". I responded by pointing out - entirely correctly and obviously - that this man almost certainly wouldn't have seemed "menacing" to her at that particular point. He would have seemed to her to be a police officer who was performing a duty. A duty which yes, she might have found frightening in and of itself (not many people enjoy being arrested etc), and one which she might have felt he was rather too zealous in performing. But nothing more than that. She most certainly cannot have thought, as she was sat in his car waiting to be driven away, that any physical harm was going to come to her at his hands. (Which only serves to make the whole thing so much more tragic and heartbreaking still)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom