Wayne Couzens sentenced to 19 months for three indecent exposures

Wayne Couzens has been sentenced to 19 months for indecent exposure crimes committed in the months before he abducted, rape and murder of Sarah Everard.

The former Metropolitan Police officer is currently serving a whole life sentence for the murder of Ms Everard, 33, in March 2021.

Couzens should have been on duty and working from home when he exposed himself to a female cyclist on an isolated rural lane in Kent in November 2020.

He went on to expose himself to two female attendants at a drive-through fast food restaurant in the Swanley area of Kent. The latter incident on February 27 was days before he kidnapped Ms Everard in Clapham.

The female cyclist spoke in court of how Couzens' crimes had impacted her.

She said: "I remember vividly being concerned that somebody who could expose themselves to a stranger in such an intimidating way could go on to commit much more serious acts. This is what happened."

"Four months after you exposed yourself to me, you raped and murdered an innocent woman.

"There were opportunities to identify you and they were not taken. I did not feel that, when I reported your crime, it was taken as seriously as I felt that it should have been.

"The horror of what happened will remain with me for the rest of my life."

DAC Stuart Cundy, who leads the Met's Directorate of Professional Standards, said that he wishes Couzens "had been arrested for these offences before he went on to kidnap, rape and murder of Ms Everard".

"I am so sorry that he wasn't," he said. "The fact he did this whilst serving as a police officer has brought shame on all us who swore to protect the communities we serve."

Couzens, 50, was sentenced to a total of 19 months for the first offence, and six months each for the two later incidents, to be served concurrently.

"This sentence will make no difference to the existing whole of life sentence, from which the defendant will never be released," judge Mrs Justice May said.

The senior judge added: "The fact that no police came to find him or his black car, to question him about these incidents, can only have served to confirm and strengthen, in the defendant's mind, a dangerous belief in his invincibility, in his power sexually to dominate and abuse women without being stopped."

Couzens was charged with six counts of indecent exposure following his murder conviction.

In February, he pleaded guilty to three of the charges after a bid to get the case thrown out on grounds of the publicity around Ms Everard's murder.

Couzens had denied three other indecent exposure allegations in June 2015, one between January 22 and February 1 2021, and another between January 30 and February 6 2021.