He later used his police belt to strangle and kill Everard, prosecutor Tom Little told the Old Bailey — the central criminal court of England and Wales. Little summarized Couzens’ actions as “deception, kidnap, rape, strangulation, fire.”
Couzens was later arrested at his home in Kent, close to where Everard’s body had been found. Prosecutors said in July that Everard and Couzens “were total strangers to each other” before he abducted her from the roadside.
On Wednesday, prosecutor Little said Couzens lured Everard into a rental car by falsely arresting her for Covid-19 violations, “handcuffing her as well as showing her his warrant card.”
Little also detailed what eyewitnesses to the kidnapping saw, saying they observed Couzens handcuff Everard, who appeared compliant and had her head down. They thought he was an undercover police officer arresting a woman.
Everard was alive for hours after her kidnapping, and was moved to Couzens’ own car later that evening, the prosecutor said. “In order to have done so and without her escaping or trying to escape or make a noise, it can be inferred that he, at least, must have threatened her,” Little told the court.
Prosecutors believe Everard died around 2.30 a.m. on March 4, several hours after she was kidnapped by Couzens.
“The defendant informed the psychiatrist that he strangled Sarah Everard using his belt. Given all the circumstances this would be consistent with his police belt,” Little said.
They believe the act happened prior to 2.34 a.m., which was when Couzens went to a petrol station and “bought two bottles of water, an apple juice, a Lucozade Orange and a carrier bag,” Little said.
“There is no CCTV from the petrol station at the relevant time due to a system upgrade having taken place. However the defendant was not to have known that and to have left her alive (even in the boot of the Seat) would have been foolhardy,” Little said.
Couzens burned Everard’s body in woodland in Kent, the court heard. “He was to burn Sarah Everard’s body after he murdered her. He then moved her body in green bags that he had purchased specifically for that task,” Little said.
Couzens then took his wife and two children on a trip to the same area a few days later. “It follows that the defendant … took his family on a family trip to the very woods where days earlier he had left Sarah Everard’s body, then returned to burn it and returned again to move it and hide it,” Little said.
Little also said Couzens told his family that he was working on the night of March 3, when he kidnapped and subsequently murdered Everard.
Wednesday’s emotional hearing saw Everard’s family speak in court, demanding that Couzens, who spent the hearing with his eyes closed and head bowed, look at them while they read their statements.
Sarah’s mother, Susan, said her daughter “spent the last hours on this earth with the very worst of humanity. She lost her life because Wayne Couzens wanted to satisfy his perverted desires … He treated my daughter as if she was nothing and disposed of her as if she was rubbish. I am haunted by the horror of it.”
Couzens is due to be sentenced on Thursday. He is expected to receive a mandatory life sentence.
Speaking to the court on Wednesday, Everard’s father, Jeremy, told Couzens that “no punishment you receive will ever compare to the pain and torture that you have inflicted on us.”
An epidemic of violence
Everard’s disappearance prompted an outpouring of grief and rage across social media from women sharing their own experiences of sexual assault, while also shining a light on the epidemic of violence against women and girls in the UK.
One woman is killed by a man on average every three days in the UK, according to data from the Femicide Census, an organization that tracks violence against women and girls. The group argues that the government’s new strategy to curb such violence “shamefully ignores” victims of femicide.
Couzens joined the Met in September 2018 and was posted to a response team covering the Bromley area in southeast London. He then moved to the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command in February 2020, where his “primary role was on uniformed patrol duties of diplomatic premises, mainly a range of Embassies,” a Met statement said.
CNN’s Laura Smith-Spark, Kara Fox, Livvy Doherty and Schams Elwazer contributed to this report.