Murder of Sarah Everard

As of December 2021, Couzens was imprisoned at HM Prison Frankland in County Durham. In March 2022, Couzens was further charged with four counts of indecent exposure related to alleged incidents in January and February 2021. On 24 May 2022, he pleaded not guilty via video link from Frankland Prison.

In November 2022, two of Couzens's colleagues – PC Jonathon Cobban and former PC Joel Borders – were jailed for multiple counts of sending grossly offensive messages on a public communications network. Cobban and Borders were part of a WhatsApp group chat with Couzens and another officer where they sent racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and ableist messages.

Four members of Reclaim These Streets took legal action against the Metropolitan Police, claiming that their human rights to freedom of speech and assembly had been breached in connection with their attempt to organise the vigil. The case was heard in January 2022, and a judgment delivered on 11 March 2022 said that the Met's decisions in the run-up to the event were "not in accordance with the law". In April 2022, the High Court refused the Met permission to appeal the judgment. The refusal was upheld by the Court of Appeal at a second application.

In June 2022, the Met announced that it would be prosecuting six people who had attended the vigil for breaking COVID-19 laws. On 10 June, three of them were fined £220 each and each ordered to pay £134 in costs when tried in absentia in a behind-closed-doors trial. The hearings for the other three were due to take place later that month. In August 2022, the Crown Prosecution Service discontinued the prosecutions. One of those originally convicted has announced that she will be pursuing a civil claim against the Met, as has Patsy Stevenson, who was handcuffed and held down by two male officers at the vigil.

On the evening of 3 March 2021, 33-year-old Sarah Everard was kidnapped in South London, England, as she was walking home to the Brixton Hill area from a friend's house near Clapham Common. She was stopped by off-duty Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens who identified himself as a police officer, handcuffed her, and placed her in his car before driving her to near Dover where he raped and strangled her, before burning her body and disposing of her remains in a nearby pond.

On 9 March 2021, Couzens was arrested in Deal, Kent, first on suspicion of effecting Everard's kidnap and later on suspicion of her murder. Everard's remains were discovered in woodland near Ashford, Kent on 10 March; following their identification, Couzens was charged with her kidnapping and murder.

On 8 June 2021, Couzens pleaded guilty to Everard's kidnapping and rape, and admitted responsibility for her death. On 9 July, he pleaded guilty to her murder. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order on 30 September 2021.

On 28 February 2021, Couzens booked a white Vauxhall car from a vehicle hire company in Dover. At 07:00 GMT on 3 March, he completed a 12-hour shift at the US Embassy in London before travelling to Kent to collect the hire car. He then drove back to London where he was recorded as being in Earl's Court and on Battersea Bridge. After arriving in Clapham, he again drove to Earl's Court before returning to Clapham at 21:23.

In October 2021 it was reported that Couzens was applying for leave to appeal against his sentence. In July 2022, his appeal against his whole-life sentence was rejected by the Court of Appeal.

A YouGov poll released in November 2021 found that 76% of women believed police culture had to change and 47% of women had decreased trust in the police following Everard's murder.

The case sparked widespread debate about women's safety and violence against women in the UK. After the murder, the British government reopened its public consultation on its violence against women and girls strategy, receiving an additional 160,000 responses in two weeks. However, some feminist campaigners argued that not enough changed in the wake of the murder. Andrea Simon of the End Violence Against Women Coalition stated that "the measures that could make a difference and the resourcing are not where they need to be." Reports of women killed by serving or former police officers in the UK since 2009 indicate that they are usually partners, unlike in this case. On 17 September 2021, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services published a report commissioned by the government after the murder, finding "inconsistencies at every level in how the police respond to violence against women and girls (VAWG) and victims" and that there needed to be a "radical refocus and shift in the priority given to VAWG offences".

On 9 October 2021 it was reported that BT chief executive Philip Jansen had outlined plans for Walk Me Home, a phone service designed to protect lone women as they walk home. The service would allow users to be tracked using the Global Positioning System (GPS), and send out alerts to emergency contacts and the police if they did not arrive at their destination when expected. The service would be activated by dialling a number, with 888 proposed as the number users would need to call. The proposal was supported by Home Secretary Priti Patel. As of June 2022, the service had yet to be implemented, nor had a timeframe for its implementation been released.

A vigil for Everard took place on Clapham Common on 13 March 2021. Throughout the early part of the day, hundreds of people attended to pay their respects. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, attended, with Kensington Palace releasing a statement saying that the Duchess "remembers what it was like to walk around London at night before she was married". She was later reported to have sent a personal letter to Everard's family to express "her sadness and sympathy".

Khan and Patel directed Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services (HMICFRS), which oversees the police, to conduct a review of the policing of the vigil and lessons learned. The review, published on 30 March 2021, found that the police had "reacted appropriately and were not heavy handed" and were "justified" in their stance with respect to the COVID regulations, saying that the risks of transmission were "too great to ignore". The HMICFRS report also said "Condemnation of the Met's actions within mere hours of the vigil – including from people in positions of responsibility – was unwarranted, showed a lack of respect for public servants facing a complex situation, and undermined public confidence in policing based on very limited evidence." They also said that the police response was a "public relations disaster" with a "materially adverse effect on public confidence in policing"; the review added, "We acknowledge that a more conciliatory response might have served the force's interests better." HMICFRS also concluded that the Met had incorrectly interpreted coronavirus-related restrictions due to legal confusion, and that not all demonstrations during a Tier 4 lockdown are unlawful. A whistleblower alleged that the reviewers had demonstrated a pro-police and anti-protestor bias while compiling the report, with the reviewing panel composed almost entirely of police officers.

On 14 March 2021, more than 1,000 people marched from New Scotland Yard to Parliament Square. The police response was described as "hands-off" and "markedly different" to that on 13 March.

The direct action group Sisters Uncut encouraged people to attend "with your sadness and your rage". By 18:00, a crowd of several hundred had congregated at the park's bandstand to hear speeches from Sisters Uncut. Four people were arrested for public-order offences and for breaching the Coronavirus Act 2020.

At a hearing on 9 July, Couzens pleaded guilty to murder. On video link from Belmarsh Prison, he kept his head down and was shaking slightly. It was reported that he had hired a car and bought a roll of strong self-adhesive tape days before the murder. He and the victim were "complete strangers" and were unknown to each other prior to her abduction. After the plea hearing, it was reported that Kent Police had received a report in 2015 of a man in a car in Dover, naked from the waist down. It was believed there may have been enough information recorded in the Kent police system to have identified the man as Couzens, who was a serving police officer at the time. Speaking outside the Old Bailey, Cressida Dick – the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police – said she felt "sickened, angered and devastated" by Couzens's crimes, adding: "They are dreadful and everyone in policing feels betrayed. Sarah was a fantastic, talented young woman with her whole life ahead of her and that has been snatched away."

The case sparked debate surrounding the role of police in UK society and police violence. The police were criticised both for their crackdown on vigils for Everard during the COVID-19 lockdown and for their failure to prevent the murder: not only did Kent Police not take any action after an alleged incident of indecent exposure in 2015, but Couzens had faced at least two other accusations of indecent exposure that had not been properly investigated and he had been involved in an incident in 2002 that was missed in his vetting. In early October, it was reported that Couzens's colleagues had once been forced to call him back to the station from patrol after a prostitute had visited the station demanding money from him. In mid-October, it was reported that police were investigating claims that Couzens had sexually assaulted a drag queen at a pub in Deal in 2018. Radio presenter Emma B also came forward to say that she had attempted to report Couzens in 2008, after he flashed her in an alley in Greenwich, but that the police had laughed at her.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) launched an investigation into whether two officers had responded appropriately to reports from 28 February that Couzens had indecently exposed himself at a branch of McDonald's in Swanley, Kent; he had been questioned about these allegations days before he was accused of Everard's murder. The IOPC also reported that it was investigating whether Kent police had properly investigated allegations of indecent exposure against Couzens made in 2015, when he was employed as an armed officer by the Civil Nuclear Constabulary. On 9 July, the IOPC announced that it had served 12 misconduct notices on officers in regards to the investigation.

Sarah Everard was born in Surrey in June 1987. She grew up in York, where she attended Fulford School. She studied Human Geography at St Cuthbert's Society, Durham University, from 2005 to 2008. At the time of her death, Everard lived in the Brixton Hill area and worked as a marketing executive for a digital media agency.

Wayne Couzens (born 1972 in Dover, Kent) was serving with the Metropolitan Police (Met) as a police constable and firearms officer at the time of Everard's murder. He had joined the Met from the Civil Nuclear Constabulary in September 2018, and in February 2020 was assigned to the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection (PaDP) branch, the division responsible for uniformed protection of government and diplomatic premises. Couzens had not undergone enhanced vetting as part of his recruitment nor had he gone through the mandatory two-year probation period with the Met before joining the PaDP. Couzens's crimes led to a non-statutory inquiry headed by Dame Elish Angiolini over how Couzens could work as a police officer for three separate forces despite his behaviour causing concern.