On September 30, 2021, the verdict fell. In the UK, the man who created fear by raping and killing Londoner Sarah Everard has just been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Last March, when she was walking home after a dinner with friends, Sarah Everard was handcuffed in the street under the pretext of a breach of confinement. It was in fact a real trap, a false arrest led by the one who will become his kidnapper, his rapist, then his murderer. Seven days after his disappearance, the burnt body of the 33-year-old young woman will be found in a wood in Kent (located in the south-east of England). The latter was strangled until death ensued.
A few meters from the place where she was found was a piece of land belonging to the one who will be found guilty of the facts. Wayne Couzens is 48 years old, married, father of two and agent of a unit responsible for the protection of diplomatic representations in London. Identified and arrested on March 9 thanks to images from surveillance cameras, the latter subsequently admitted to having used his official handcuffs as well as his professional card to stop Sarah Everard before killing her. While he initially assured the investigators that he had handed over the young woman to three men from Eastern Europe, Wayne Couzens had ended up acknowledging his responsibility and pleaded guilty during his trial.
To read also on aufeminin: Sarah Everard disappearance: it’s not for women not to be vulnerable but for men to stop assaulting
Life imprisonment for the policeman
Already known for exhibitionism incidents (which the police are investigating), Wayne Couzens has been sentenced by British justice to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of Sarah Everard. According to information from Parisian, in rendering his verdict, Judge Adrian Fulford would have underlined the “particularly brutal circumstances“in which the events took place. The man is the first policeman in British history to bail of such a penalty, which turns out to be the most severe sanction of the British criminal justice system.
The judge also accused Wayne Couzens of accentuating women’s feeling of insecurity and degraded their confidence in the police. Indeed, the death of Sarah Everard really shook England, prompting thousands of women across the country to testify on social networks of their growing sense of insecurity. An outpouring of speech calling on political leaders to act against violence against women.