Wayne Couzens, the former police officer who kidnapped, raped, and murdered Sarah Everard, has been sentenced to life in prison.
Couzens, 48, was sentenced in the second part of a two-day hearing at the Old Bailey after admitting to the abduction, sexual abuse, and killing of the 33-year-old marketing executive.
On Wednesday, September 29, the court heard the prosecutor, Tom Little QC, argue that the defendant should receive a whole life sentence, as reported by Sky News.
Referring to the case as "unprecedented", he told the court that Couzens used his warrant card to kidnap Everard "by fraud" and then detained her "by force".
Little also said that there must have been "significant" planning and explained that Everard was alive for several hours before she was raped and killed.
The court also heard Everard's emotional sister Katie Everard refer to Couzens as a "monster".
"You treated Sarah as if she was nothing," she told Couzens. "Placed more emphasis on satisfying your sick disgusting perversions than on a life. You disposed of my sister's body like it was rubbish. Fly-tipped her like she meant nothing."
Couzens was an officer with the Metropolitan Police at the time he assaulted and ended the life of the 33-year-old marketing executive around March 3.
The ex-London officer had completed a 12-hour shift the morning before he kidnapped, strangled, and raped Everard, BBC News reports.
According to the outlet, in order to carry out the depraved crime, he deceptively told her she was under arrest for breaking Covid guidelines and then drove his handcuffed victim to Dover, where he continued to drive, with Everard in tow, using his own car.
He took Everard to a remote rural area that he was familiar with and proceeded to rape and murder her.
Everard's remains were found in a woodland stream in Ashford, Kent, a week after she went missing.
CCTV footage below shows the moment Couzens stopped Everard:In June, the 48-year-old ex-Met police officer pleaded guilty to the rape and kidnapping of Everard after he was initially charged on March 12.
Couzens had pleaded guilty to kidnapping her "unlawfully and by force or fraud" on March 3, before also pleading guilty to the second charge of rape carried out between March 2 and March 10.
The defendant responded to the two charges put to him in court in the presence of four members of Everard's family, responding simply: "Yes, sir."
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