Breaking: Sarah Everard killer Wayne Couzens handed whole-life sentence
Wayne Couzens has been handed a whole-life prison sentence for murdering Sarah Everard. Wayne Couzens kidnapped, raped and killed the 33-year-old as she walked home on 3 March.
Couzens used his police ID to falsely arrest Sarah Everard and put handcuffs on her. He drove her for five miles before raping and then strangling her to death with his police belt. He then burnt her body.
Ahead of sentencing Couzens, the judge said the case was “devastating, tragic and wholly brutal”.
“You’ve betrayed your family and there’s no evidence of genuine contrition,” he told Couzens.
Lord Justice Fulford described the circumstances of the murder as “grotesque”.
He said the seriousness of the case was so “exceptionally high” that it warranted a whole-life order.
“The misuse of a police officer’s role such as occurred in this case in order to kidnap, rape and murder a lone victim is of equal seriousness as a murder for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause,” he told the Old Bailey.
He paid tribute to the dignity of Ms Everard’s family, whose statements in court he said revealed the human impact of Couzens’ “warped, selfish and brutal offending which was both sexual and homicidal”.
Couzens shook in the dock as he was sent down to begin his sentence.
Murder of Sarah Everard
Wayne Couzens hatched sick plot weeks before murdering Sarah Everard
Devastated sister of murdered Sarah Everard says family ‘couldn’t even say goodbye’
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