The murder of Sarah Everard shocked, outraged and devastated the nation. Sarah, 33, was assaulted and murdered on her way home from a friend’s house after being kidnapped by a police officer, Wayne Couzens.
The devastating incident is the subject of a new BBC documentary, Sarah Everard: The Search for Justice, which looks at Sarah’s death, and the subsequent conversations about police failings and violence against women and girls. See the timeline of events from Sarah’s disappearance to Couzens’ arrest, sentencing and the subsequent enquiry into how he was able to become a police officer.
March 2021
On Wednesday 3 March 2021, Sarah went missing after leaving her friend’s house in Clapham to head back to Brixton, London at around 9 pm. During that time, she spoke to her boyfriend briefly on the phone but didn’t make it back to her flat.
The subsequent social media search for her quickly went viral, while the Met issued an appeal for information on her whereabouts on Saturday 6 March and shared a CCTV image of her.
On Sunday 7 March, they shared another image of Sarah with details of the outfit she was wearing at the time, a green jacket, navy blue trousers and blue and orange trainers with a white beanie hat. The police also appealed for dash cam and doorbell camera footage.
On Tuesday 9 March, police confirmed that they had arrested a police officer in connection to Sarah’s disappearance, with Assistant Commissioner Nick Ephgrave calling it “shocking and deeply disturbing”. They confirmed that they had also arrested a woman on suspicion of assisting an offender.
On Wednesday 10 March, police began to search locations in Kent including a woodland area near Ashford. They also confirmed that the police officer had been arrested on suspicion of murder and identified Wayne Couzens, a serving police officer in Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command.
On Wednesday evening, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick confirmed that human remains had been found in the woodland area.
On Friday 12 March, police confirmed that the body of Sarah Everard had been identified. Mr Ephgrave told reporters at New Scotland Yard: “As you know, on Wednesday evening detectives investigating the disappearance of Sarah Everard discovered a body secreted in woodland in Kent. The body has now been recovered and a formal identification procedure has now been undertaken. I can now confirm that it is the body of Sarah Everard.”
By Friday evening, Couzens was charged with the kidnap and murder of Sarah.
On 13 March, vigils were held across the country for Sarah, including one in Clapham Common, London, which was attended by the Princess of Wales among hundreds of others paying their respects. By evening time, four people were arrested for public order offences and COVID regulation breaches, which prompted widespread anger from the public.
On Tuesday 16 March, Couzens appearances at the Old Bailey. Judge Mark Lucraft QC set a trial for 25 October.
June - July 2021
On Tuesday 1st June, it was confirmed that Sarah had died from compression of the neck. The Met released a statement that read: “A postmortem examination into the death of Sarah Everard held at the William Harvey hospital in Ashford has given cause of death as compression of the neck. Sarah’s family have been informed and are being supported by specialist officers.”
On Tuesday 8 June, Couzens pleads guilty to rape and kidnap. On 9 July, he pleaded guilty to murder. Speaking outside the Old Bailey, Cressida Dick said: “[Couzens crimes] are dreadful and everyone in policing feels betrayed. Sarah was a fantastic, talented young woman with her whole life ahead of her and that has been snatched away.”
September 2021
Three months later on 30 September, Couzens appeared at the Old Bailey in a two-day sentencing, in which it was confirmed that Couzens used his position as a police officer to falsely arrest Sarah, handcuffing her and showing his warrant card before putting her in his hired car by telling her that she had breached COVID guidelines.
In a witness impact statement, her sister Katie Everard told Couzens: “You disposed of my sister’s body like it was rubbish. Fly-tipped her like she meant nothing. She meant everything. My only hope is that she was in a state of shock and that she wasn’t aware of the disgusting things being done to her by a monster.
"It disgusts me that you were the last person to touch her perfect body and violate her in the way you did.”
Her mother, Susan, also read a statement: “Sarah died in horrendous circumstances. I am tormented at the thought of what she endured. In her last hours, she was faced with brutality and terror, alone with someone intent on doing her harm. The thought of it is unbearable. I am haunted by the horror of it.” Sarah’s father, Jeremy, said: “The horrendous murder of my daughter, Sarah, is in my mind all the time and will be for the rest of my life. Sarah was handcuffed and unable to defend herself. This preys on my mind all the time.
“I can never forgive you for what you have done, for taking Sarah away from us.”
Lord Justice Fulford sentenced Couzens to a whole life order in prison, with the severity of the punishment also being linked to how he used his position as a police officer. He said: “I have not the slightest doubt that the defendant used his position as a police officer to coerce her on a wholly false pretext into the car he had hired for this purpose… Her state of mind and what she had to endure over a journey of 80 miles and during the final hours of her life, would have been as bleak and agonising as it is possible to imagine.”
“[…] Those consequences are that on the count of murder, you will be imprisoned for life and the tariff is a whole life order. I have taken into account the offences of kidnapping and rape in reaching that decision and on those counts I impose no separate penalty.”
December 2021
From December 2021, Couzens has been imprisoned in HM Prison Frankland, County Durham.
2022 - 2024
On 2 November 2022, Met officers Jonathon Cobban and Joel Borders were sentenced to three months in prison over an offensive WhatsApp group where they shared racist, misogynistic and homophobic messages with Couzens. They will never be allowed to work as police officers again.
On 29 February 2024, the Angiolini Inquiry's findings - which was commissioned to uncover circumstances that led to Sarah's death - claimed that Couzens should never have been a police officer and that "red flags" were ignored, including that he had sexual offences for indecent exposure dating back from 2015, 2020 and 2021 - days before kidnapping Sarah.
The report also reports that Couzens had attempted a knife-point kidnap in 1995, that he had raped a woman in 2006 while a special constable, and again in 2019 while working as an officer with the Met.
The report reads: "Repeated failures in recruitment and vetting meant that Couzens could enjoy the powers and privileges that accompany the role of a police officer. He went on to use his knowledge of police powers to falsely arrest Sarah Everard.”