Thread by @mattuthompson

“She was just walking home” has been the rallying cry over the death of Sarah Everard.

But in court today the prosecution has said there are five better words that summarise what happened to Sarah:

“Deception, kidnap, rape, strangulation, fire.”

@LBC

The prosecution tells the court that having murdered Sarah, Wayne Couzens burned her body in Hoad’s Wood in Kent, and moved her remains in green bags to a pond, around 130m from a plot of land he himself owned within that wood.

#saraheverard

Wayne Couzens, a former Met Police officer, worked on COVID patrols. Prosecution says he was “aware of the regulations, and what language to use to those who may have breached them. He was to use that knowledge to kidnap Sarah.”

#SarahEverard

On 3rd March, the day Sarah disappeared, Wayne Couzens hired a car in Dover. Prosecutors say there was “no credible alternative explanation for his need to rent a hire care other than to kidnap and rape a lone female.”

The picture prosecutors are painting is of a premeditated attack, in which Couzens planned a trip to London to abduct a woman.

They say he used his police badge, and handcuffs to kidnap Sarah, on the pretence of her breaching COVID rules, and then raped and killed her.

@LBC

The court has been shown CCTV footage which appears to show Wayne Couzens stopping Sarah Everard as she walks along the street.

He shows her his police badge, handcuffs her and then detains her in the back of his hire car. The prosecution say he used COVID rules to trick her.

Eyewitnesses saw the kidnap of Sarah Everard.

They saw a man and woman standing on the pavement. The woman had her arms behind her back and was giving her other arm as the man placed the handcuffs on her. The woman was compliant with her head down. The man was confident.

Prosecutors say Wayne Couzens falsely arrested Sarah using COVID regulations. He handcuffed her and drove her back to Kent.

It was the start of a “lengthy ordeal” that was to lead “inexorably to her rape and murder. She must have realised her fate.”

@LBC

The prosecution says that Couzens drove to Kent, swapped Sarah from the hire car to his own car, and drove her to a remote location. A rural area of Kent.

This is where she was raped, they say, in Couzens’ own car.

Whilst prosecutors are confident it wasn’t until they got to Kent, near Dover, that Sarah was raped, it impossible to say how much time elapsed between her rape and her murder.

But they assume it may have happened before 3am, having arrived near Dover at around 11.30pm.

Often in these cases you are struck by the banality that can follow such horror.

The court has just been played footage of Couzens buying a hot chocolate and a Bakewell tart in Costa, just hours after he has raped and murdered Sarah Everard.

The next morning, Couzens drove to Sandwich in Kent, where he threw Sarah’s mobile phone into a canal. It was subsequently recovered by police divers.

Couzens arrived home to his unsuspecting wife and children not much later than he would have done had he been on a night shift, as he’d told them he was.

At 11.32 he called the dentist to rearrange appointments for his kids.

He then went out to buy petrol to burn Sarah’s body.

Think it’s worth pausing to say that this is stunning police work. Extraordinary detail in reconstructing the exact timeline of events.

Yes, there are questions for the Met around all of this. But credit where it’s due.

On the 6th of March, Couzens sent an email to his supervisor in the police. He wrote:

“At this moment in time I feel unable to carry firearms… I feel mislead and disillusioned by the way I’ve been recruited… I’ve made an appointment with my GP to seek advice.”

Prosecutors have just told the court that Wayne Couzens took his family on a trip to the very woods in which he had burned and buried Sarah Everard just days before.

“Allowing his children to play in relative close proximity to where Sarah’s body had been dumped in a pond”

@LBC

The key to the police case was CCTV footage from a bus that passed Sarah Everard. Police used it, and number plate cameras to identity Couzens’ hire car.

That led them to Enterprise car hire, where they got his identity and his phone number.

Using Couzens’ cell phone data, police were able to work out his movements around the woods where he’d dumped Sarah’s body.

In all, they trawled through 1,800 hours of CCTV footage.

When Couzens was finally arrested on the 9th March, it was on suspicion of Sarah’s kidnap.

He didn’t offer any resistance. Asked whether he knew Sarah, he initially denied it.

Then he lied, saying he was in “financial shit” and a gang had coerced him into picking up women.

And that is the break for lunch. More once the court resumes.

Apologies for all the grim details. Am doing my best to filter the worst of it, but think it’s important that we hear how this man operated, and how the police caught him.

The post mortem concluded that Sarah Everard had been strangled.

The prosecution says this may have been with Wayne Couzens’ police belt.

The court has been told that Wayne Couzens burnt Sarah’s body in an old fridge, in woodlands in Kent.

In that fridge police recovered bones, hair, and parts of clothing including a bra.

Couzens then removed her remains from the fridge and dumped them in a pond.

Graphic content warning.

The court hears that bloodstains were found in Wayne Couzens’ car. The DNA profile matched Sarah Everard. There were also traces of semen. Those DNA profiles matched Wayne Couzens.

That allows police to conclude the rape occurred in his car.

On 10th March, Couzens was already in custody when he was further arrested on suspicion of Sarah’s murder.

Whilst on his way to be interviewed, he deliberately hit his head on the sink in his cell.

He was taken to hospital where he was given stitches.

On 12th March Couzens intentionally ran into a wall in his cell, badly cutting his head. He tried again to self harm by banging his head against a wall whilst waiting for an ambulance.

He was taken to hospital and received treatment but was deemed fit to be interviewed.

We are now hearing from Sarah’s mother Susan Everard:

“She was my precious little girl. I can never talk to her or hold her again. I’ve kept her dressing down which still smells of her, and I have that instead of her.

I’m tormented at the thought of what she endured.”

Sarah’s mother Susan: “She spent her last hours on earth with the worst of humanity.

I’m incandescent with rage. You treated my daughter as if she was nothing and disposed of her as if she was rubbish.

In her last hours she was faced with brutality and terror.”

Sarah’s father Jeremy asks Wayne Couzens to face him.

“The impact of what you’ve done will never end. The horrendous murder of my daughter Sarah is in my mind all the time. A father wants to look after his children, and you have deliberately stopped my ability to do that.”

@LBC

Sarah’s father Jeremy to Wayne Couzens in court:

“There is no redemption for what you’ve done for taking Sarah away from us.

“You stopped us seeing Sarah one last time, and [by burning her body] you stopped me from giving my daughter one last kiss goodbye.”

Sarah’s sister Katie breaks down addressing Couzens in court

“It disgusts me that you were the last person to touch her perfect body. How scared she must have been. She had no one with her. No kindness. I hate that I wasn’t there to stop you.

How dare you take her away from me”

This isn’t about me, but reading those family statements on the radio is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do as a professional broadcaster. Heartbroken.

That’s us done for the day. Tomorrow we will hear mitigation arguments from Wayne Couzens’ lawyers, and then it will proceed to sentencing.

Thanks for sticking with it. I’ll be back in the morning.