Sarah Everard case: Fury as cops say ‘flag down bus’ for help after Sarah murder
British police have been slammed over bizarre new guidelines to protect women in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder.
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British police have been slammed for urging women to “flag down a bus” if approached by a lone male policeman in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder.
It comes as another high-ranking officer said Everard “should not have submitted” to London Met officer Wayne Couzens who “arrested” her before abducting, raping and killing the 33-year-old.
But, according to a report in The Sun, Scotland Yard’s new strategy, aimed at protecting women, has been slammed.
They say any woman stopped by a male officer they don’t trust should “run into a house” or “wave down a bus”.
The Met is also advising Londoners to “shout out to a passer-by” or call emergency services despite women highlighting a deep mistrust of police after Ms Everard’s death.
But their new guidance has sparked outrage – with many branding it “deeply insulting” and “derisory”.
“Apparently bus drivers should stop if someone is waving them down in the street away from a bus stop, just in case, because that’s a better answer than the Met getting their act together?!” Labour MP Wes Streeting said.
“The more ministers and the Met are saying, the less reassuring they are. Utterly woeful.”
Activist Patsy Stevenson, who was wrestled to the ground at a vigil for Ms Everard, said: “Telling us that we should scream and draw attention to ourselves, or call 999 to check, or wave down a bus, is like saying she could have stopped it.
“She couldn’t have. This was not down to her. We should be able to trust that a police officer is not going to murder us.”
Another person said: “Has anybody yet found the part where the police ask men not to kill women?
“All I’m finding are the parts where women if frightened for their lives have to ‘wave down passing buses’.”
One woman tweeted: “How are you meant to wave a bus down if you’re in handcuffs?
“Why are bus drivers now responsible for policing the police? What if there aren’t buses running?”
While someone said: “Oh yeah cause buses are notoriously easy to wave down. bus drivers love to stop the bus because it’s such a casual job with no schedule or anything”.
Fury is also growing against comments made by police boss who said women “need to be streetwise” following Sarah’s death.
North Yorkshire commissioner Philip Allott said: “So women, first of all, need to be streetwise about when they can be arrested and when they can’t be arrested. She should never have been arrested and submitted to that,” he said.
“Perhaps women need to consider in terms of the legal process, to just learn a bit about that legal process”.
COP GETS ‘RARE’ SENTENCE
Yesterday, Ms Everard’s parents wept in a London court as the policeman who raped and murdered her in a fake arrest was told he will die behind bars.
Wayne Couzens, 48, falsely arrested Ms Everard for “breaking coronavirus restrictions”, then kidnapped, raped and murdered her, was given a rare whole-life jail term on Thursday local time.
Lord Justice Adrian Fulford imposed the rare order, which just 61 criminals in Britain have, as he abused his position as a police officer.
There were tears and sighs of relief from Ms Everard’s family as Couzens became the first British cop to ever receive the sentence.
They later released a statement saying “nothing can bring” [Sarah] back as they described the “overwhelming pain” of losing her.
“We are very pleased that Wayne Couzens has received a full life sentence and will spend the rest of his life in jail,” the family said in a statement.
“Sarah lost her life needlessly and cruelly and all the years of life she had yet to enjoy were stolen from her. Wayne Couzens held a position of trust as a police officer and we are outraged and sickened that he abused this trust in order to lure Sarah to her death. The world is a safer place with him imprisoned.”
Sentencing Couzens, the judge said: “The misuse of a police officer’s role such as occurred in this case in order to kidnap, rape and murder a lone victim is of equal seriousness as a murder for the purpose of advancing a political, religious ideological cause.”
He praised Ms Everard’s family, whose statements in court revealed the human impact of Couzen’s “warped, selfish and brutal offending which was both sexual and homicidal”.
“Sarah Everard was a wholly blameless victim of a grotesquely executed series of circumstances that culminated in her death and the disposal of her body. She was simply walking home,” Justice Fulford said.
He told how Couzens spent a month travelling from his home in Deal, Kent, to London while hatching a gruesome plan to “hunt a lone female to kidnap and rape”.
“Sarah Everard’s state of mind, and what she had to endure would have been as bleak and agonising as it is possible to imagine,” Justice Fulford said.
‘GROTESQUE’ CRIME
Ms Everard’s harrowing final moments were revealed for the first time at the Old Bailey in London yesterday.
Her tormented parents Susan and Jeremy were forced to sit through the grim details of her death as they bravely stood up to face her killer.
Along with Ms Everard’s sister Katie, they read powerful statements revealing the nature of her murder meant they couldn’t even have a final kiss goodbye.
Ms Everard’s disappearance sparked one of Britain’s most high-profile missing persons investigations and protests calling for better safety for women in public spaces.
But there has been widespread horror and revulsion at the involvement of a police officer, who exploited lockdown restrictions and abused his position of trust to kill.
Couzens, who served with the elite diplomatic protection unit of London’s Metropolitan Police, admitted kidnapping, rape and murder at a hearing in July and was sacked.
Couzens, who will die in jail, becomes the latest of only 60 criminals who will never be considered for release.
“The misuse of a police officer’s role such as occurred in this case in order to kidnap, rape and murder a lone victim is of equal seriousness as a murder for the purpose of advancing a political, religious ideological cause,” Judge Fulford said.
Ms Everard’s family was in court to see her killer jailed. On Wednesday, they gave emotional statements describing the harrowing impact of her death.
“No punishment that you receive will ever compare to the pain and torture that you have inflicted on us,” her father, Jeremy, told Couzens.
The high-profile case refocused attention on how the police handle complaints of violence against women and girls in Britain.
Questions have been raised about why previous complaints of indecent exposure against Couzens, said to have been a user of sex workers and violent pornography, were not dealt with.
The leader of Britain’s main opposition Labour Party, Keir Starmer, a former chief prosecutor for England and Wales, said legislation needed to be tightened.
He also called for a review of how Couzens was able to “slip through the net”, despite a series of “warning signs”.
Starmer’s Labour colleague, Harriet Harman, a former women’s minister, called for the resignation of Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick.
“Women must be able to trust the police not fear them. Women’s confidence in police will have been shattered,” she said in a letter to Home Secretary Priti Patel and the Met.
SARAH’S KIDNAPPING CAUGHT ON CAMERA
Couzens’ two-day sentencing hearing was told that Everard’s ordeal could be summarised as “deception, kidnap, rape, strangulation, fire”.
Everard, who had been visiting a friend in Clapham, south London, was strangled then set on fire. Her remains were found in woodlands a week after she was abducted.
At a two-day sentencing hearing, prosecutor Tom Little said Couzens targeted the 33-year-old marketing executive on March 3, after finishing a shift at the US embassy.
Couzens, who was off-duty but wearing his police belt, kidnapped Everard in a “false arrest”, by “handcuffing her and showing his warrant card”, he added.
Security camera footage showed him holding up the police ID, handcuffing Everard then putting her into a car he had hired “to kidnap and rape a lone woman”, he said.
A couple driving past in a car witnessed the scene but assumed an undercover police officer was making an arrest, the lawyer added.
But he said Couzens exploited his knowledge and experience of police patrols enforcing lockdown restrictions and knew what language to use.
MUM REVEALS ‘TORMENT’ FOR SARAH
Ms Everard’s mother has told a court she is “tormented” at the thought of what her daughter endured.
Murderer Couzens sat in the dock at London’s Old Bailey with his head bowed, watched by Everard’s family, who gave emotional victim impact statements to the court.
Everard’s mother Susan said her daughter “lost her life because Couzens wanted to satisfy his perverted desires. It is a ridiculous reason”.
“I am outraged that he masqueraded as a policeman in order to get what he wanted,” she added.
The 33-year-old marketing executive was abducted by Couzens as he falsely arrested her for breaching Covid guidelines.
Couzens drove for several hours before raping and strangling her, and setting fire to her body.
Ms Everard’s mother Susan told the court she had kept her daughter’s dressing gown as it smelled like her.
Mrs Everard said: “She spent the last hours on this Earth with the very worst of humanity.
“Sarah died in horrendous circumstances. I go through the sequence of events. I wonder when she realised she was in mortal danger.
“Burning her body was the final insult. It meant we could never again see her sweet face and never say goodbye.
“Our lives will never be the same. We should be a family of five, but now we are four. Her death leaves a yawning chasm in our lives that cannot be filled.
“I yearn for her. I remember all the lovely things about her: she was caring, she was funny. She was clever, but she was good at practical things too. She was a beautiful dancer. She was a wonderful daughter.”
Everard’s father Jeremy asked for a photograph of his daughter to be shown to the courtroom as he read his impact statement.
He then asked the killer, “Mr Couzens, please will you look at me”, before telling him: “No punishment that you receive will ever compare to the pain and torture that you have inflicted on us.”
Professor Everard told the killer “there can be no redemption” for what he had done.
“All my family want is Sarah back with us. We loved being a part of Sarah’s world and expected her to have a full and happy life.
“The closest we can get to her now is to visit her grave every day.”
Before the hearing, London’s Metropolitan Police said they were “sickened, angered and devastated by this man’s crimes, which betray everything we stand for”.
The force has sacked the officer and said his actions “raise many questions and concerns” but it would not comment further until after the sentencing.
Demonstrators outside the court held banners with slogans criticising the police such as “Met Police Blood On Your Hands” and let off smoke flares.
The government has pledged to improve legislation after Everard’s murder sparked widespread anger at women’s lack of safety in public spaces, as well as low conviction rates for offences including rape, domestic abuse and stalking.
VULNERABLE
From the moment Everard was handcuffed at 9:34pm (local time), it was just three minutes before Couzens drove off with her in the car, taking her to Dover, on the English south coast.
There, he transferred her to his own car — again captured on camera, driving her to a remote rural area where he raped her.
Couzens, a married father-of-two, told a psychiatrist he used his police belt to strangle Everard before setting her body on fire and dumping it in bags.
Police checked security camera footage and identified Couzens through his hire car. He was arrested at his home on March 9, just minutes after he deleted his phone data.
A former boyfriend of Everard said she was “savvy and streetwise” and would not have got into a car with a stranger except “by force or manipulation”, Mr Little said.
“The fact she had been to a friend’s house for dinner at the height of the early 2021 lockdown made her more vulnerable to and more likely to submit to an accusation that she had acted in breach of the Covid regulations in some way,” the lawyer told the court.
Originally published as Sarah Everard case: Fury as cops say ‘flag down bus’ for help after Sarah murder
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