'Lessons to be learned' as Sarah Everard murderer is locked up for life

Couzens, 48, was handed a whole life sentence on Thursday for killing the 33-year-old marketing executive after using his warrant card and handcuffs to snatch her off the street using Covid lockdown rules to make a false arrest.

The Metropolitan Police firearms officer, who had clocked off from a 12-hour shift at the US embassy that morning, drove his victim 80 miles before raping her, strangling her to death with his police belt and burning her body.

In his sentencing on Thursday, Lord Justice Fulford said the case in which a serving officer abused his position was so exceptional it warranted a whole life order.

The judge described Ms Everard as "a wholly blameless victim of a grotesquely executed series of offences that culminated in her death and the disposal of her body".

The sentence has been welcomed by the West Midlands Victims' Commissioner, Nicky Brennan, who said there were "lessons to be learnt for all police forces".

She said: "I welcome today’s sentence for Wayne Couzens.

“For a police officer in a position of trust, as he was, to kidnap, rape and murder a woman is disgusting and he rightly should receive this whole life sentence.

“There are lessons to be learnt for all police forces from the murder of Sarah Everard and we all need to put a much greater emphasis on women’s safety.

"This is something we are actively working on and the force’s Counter Corruption Unit proactively look for patterns of behaviour that could be problematic and cause a danger to the public.

“There is no getting away from the fact that violence against women and abuse of women needs to be tackled and a key part of that is challenging and changing the attitudes and behaviours of men who perpetrate that violence.”