Official report reveals new gross failures by police to overlook Wayne Cousins’ huge sex crimes, giving him police powers and using them to kidnap and murder Sarah Everard revealed that he had done so.
The failures described in Dame Elish Angiolini’s report were more serious than previously thought, and she concluded that Mr Cousins should not have become a police officer. She highlighted his danger to women and a series of missed opportunities to realize he was unfit to serve as an officer due to repeated failures in three units.
He was a police officer with the Metropolitan Police Department and had been entrusted with a gun as part of his parliamentary and diplomatic security command.
Cousins abducted Sarah Everard, 33, from a London street in March 2021 during coronavirus restrictions. Using her police warrant card and her police powers, he persuaded her to get into the back seat of his car.
He then raped and murdered her, scattering her body across the Kent countryside, and is serving a life sentence.
An investigation was ordered by the government, and a report released Thursday found police responsible for Cousins’ escape.
The report reveals that Cousins had been showing extreme pornography to colleagues and condemns police culture. He was reported to police on charges of indecency, and investigations by Kent Police in 2015 and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2021 failed. And there were no routine tests that could have shown him unfit to be a police officer.
Red flags were also ignored, including reports that Cousins had committed indecent acts in 2015, 2020 and 2021 in the days before the murder, and that he was in debt before joining the police force. It also became clear that
Ms Everard’s parents, Sue and Jeremy, and her siblings, Katie and James, condemned police in a statement and said how her loss haunts every part of their lives.
“It’s clear that Wayne Cousins should never have been a police officer. Despite his position of trust, he was actually a serial sex offender.
“Throughout his career, warning signs were overlooked and opportunities to confront him were missed.
“We believe Sarah died because he was a police officer. She would never get into a stranger’s car.”
In 1995, 18 years before Cousins killed Everard, he is accused of attempting to kidnap her at knifepoint in north London. According to the report, a woman alleges Mr Cousins raped her in 2006, when he was a special constable with Kent Police, and again in October 2019, when he was an officer with the Metropolitan Police. Also, in the summer of 2019, he allegedly tried to sexually assault a man wearing drugs at a bar in Kent, and used his position as a police officer to silence the man’s complaint. .
Cousins first applied to join Kent Police in 2004. Although she failed the examination, she was later allowed to serve as a special constable with the same powers.
The report says he should never have been hired as a police officer in the first place. He was hired by the Civilian Nuclear Police despite being in debt, which 2011 review rules said was a bar to employment.
He applied to join the Metropolitan Police in 2018, but the force missed material in the force’s national database linking his car to an allegation of indecent assault in Kent in 2015.
In 2019, the Metropolitan Museum of Art gave him a gun after another review that overlooked his possible sexual crimes.
Angiolini concludes: “Repeated failures in recruitment and vetting meant that Cousin was able to enjoy the powers and privileges that come with the role of a police officer.
“He continued to use his knowledge of police powers to wrongfully arrest Sarah Everard.”
After his crimes were revealed, some police chiefs said they privately considered Cousins an anomaly. Angiolini revealed a broader failure and failure to grasp the scale of the error.
“Even after Mr. Cousins’ arrest and review of his screening permit, the Metropolitan Railway would have still hired him for the 2022 investigation had the same information been provided,” the investigator said. said. I thought this was amazing. ”
Mr Angiolini called for a thorough review of police reviews, and this call, along with some of 16 other recommendations, came despite the force having already been told to make amends in a previous official report. He pointed out that this would address the deficiencies that had been neglected.
She said police should take indecent behavior more seriously, amid claims it could be a gateway to more serious attacks.
The Everard family said in a statement: “It’s been almost three years since Sarah passed away. We no longer have to wait for a call from her. We no longer expect to see her. I know I won’t be attending.
“However, the desperate desire to have her with us remains and the loss of Sarah permeates every part of our lives.”
“The time has come for all police leaders to do everything they can to improve hiring, vetting and investigative standards,” Angiolini said.
“Wayne Cousins was never fit to be a police officer. Police leaders need to make sure there are no other Cousins operating in visible locations.”
