Sarah Everard: The Search for Justice : The second police lastly tracked down Wayne Couzens revealed in new documentary | EUROtoday

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Detectives who arrested Sarah Everard’s killer, Wayne Couzens, have described the second the color drained from his face after they knocked on his entrance door.

The harrowing new documentary into a criminal offense that shocked the nation reveals how the Metropolitan Police tracked down a killer hiding of their ranks after he falsely arrested Ms Everard, 33, earlier than raping and murdering her.

The advertising and marketing government was snatched by Couzens, who was working with the pressure’s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection unit, whereas she was strolling residence in Clapham, south London, on 3 March 2021 sparking a determined search. Her burnt physique was ultimately discovered dumped in a woodland.

In the hour-long BBC documentary, Detective Chief Inspector Katherine Goodwin recollects the second she found their prime suspect was a serving Metropolitan Police officer.

At the time, a crew of officers was racing with blue lights from their London headquarters to his residence in Deal, Kent, on 9 March after CCTV from a passing bus captured footage of Couzens’ rent automobile parked along side the highway with Ms Everard.

“Whilst Nick and his team were running on blue lights to, to get some control over the address, one of my detective sergeants came running into the office and said, ‘We need to shut the door. You need to hear this’,” she stated.

“He then put one of our researchers on speaker phone and she said, ‘He’s a police officer. He’s a serving officer in the Met. He currently works for the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Group’.

At Couzens’ home in Deal, the arresting officer, Nick Harvey, said his team “went silent” with shock when he was advised the person they have been about to arrest was a serving officer.

“We knocked on the door. Actually, he opened it. I just put my foot straight into the door. I showed him my warrant card and he just went grey. Just… all the colour just ran out of his face,” he recalled.

Inside, the killer fed officers a concocted story about his household being threatened by gangsters if he didn’t ship a lady to them, earlier than vowing: “If I honestly could tell you anything else, then you’d have it right now. Honestly. Honestly.”

Her stays have been discovered the next day after officers tracked his cell phone to Hoad’s Wood, in Ashford, the place his household owned a plot of land.

DCI Goodwin added: “I then went to see Sarah’s family, and we told them that we’d found a body and that we believed it was Sarah’s. Which, as you can imagine, is just the most horrific news you can deliver to someone’s loved ones.”

Prosecutor Tom Little KC stated it was the breach of belief after the officer used his warrant card to trick Ms Everard into stepping into his automobile that helped safe a uncommon entire life order for Couzens – who won’t ever be launched from jail.

Although the case prompted a nationwide outcry about girls’s security and violence towards girls and ladies, he fears the disaster just isn’t getting any higher.

“I don’t think that the incidences of violence against women and girls are reducing or decreasing in any way. In fact, it would appear to me that it’s getting worse,” he added.

Emma Loach, who commissioned the BBC documentary, stated: “The murder of Sarah Everard sent shock waves across the country and ignited an urgent conversation about police failings and violence against women and girls.

“This is an important and timely film and we, like Sarah’s family, hope it will contribute to the ongoing dialogue around the issues raised.”

Sarah Everard: The Search for Justice on Tuesday 5 March, 9pm, BBC One and iPlayer.