AN officer who strangled Sarah Everard with his police belt after kidnapping her under the guise of a fake arrest for breaking lockdown rules will die in jail.

Wayne Couzens, 48, was handed a whole life order for the “grotesque” killing of the 33-year-old marketing executive which shocked and outraged the nation.

Sentencing at the Old Bailey on Thursday, 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.

He said: “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 ideological cause.”

He paid tribute to the dignity of Everard’s family, whose statements in court revealed the human impact of Couzens’ “warped, selfish and brutal offending which was both sexual and homicidal”.

READ MORE: Police officer killed Sarah Everard after false arrest for Covid breach, court hears

Couzens shook in the dock as he was sent down to begin his sentence.

The court had heard how Couzens used his Metropolitan Police-issue warrant card and handcuffs to snatch Everard as she walked home from a friend’s house in Clapham, south London, on the evening of March 3.

The firearms officer, who had clocked off from a 12-hour shift at the American embassy that morning, drove to a secluded rural area near Dover in Kent, where he parked up and raped Ms Everard.

Everard, who lived in Brixton, south London, had been strangled with Couzens’ police issue belt by 2.30am the following morning.

Married Couzens then burned her body in a refrigerator in an area of woodland he owned in Hoads Wood, near Ashford, before dumping the remains in a nearby pond.

He was arrested at his home in Deal, Kent, after police connected him to a hire car he used to abduct Everard, whose remains were found by police dogs on March 10.

Police waited for two hours before moving in to detain the officer, giving him the chance to wipe his mobile phone beforehand.

The National:

In an emergency interview at his home, Couzens concocted a fake story that he had been “leant” on by a gang which forced him to hand over “a girl”.

He went on to plead guilty to Ms Everard’s kidnap, rape and murder and was sacked from the force in July.

On Wednesday, Everard’s parents Jeremy and Susan and sister Katie asked Couzens to look at them, condemning him as a “monster” as he sat quaking in the dock with his head bowed.

Prosecutor Tom Little QC suggested the case was so exceptional and unprecedented that it could warrant a whole life order, meaning Couzens would die in jail.

Couzens’ defence barrister Jim Sturman QC urged the judge to hand him a lengthy life sentence, meaning he would be eligible for parole in his 80s.

Sturman said: “The defendant was invited to look at the Everards. He could not, I am told.

“He is ashamed. What he has done is terrible. He deserves a very lengthy finite term, but he did all he could after he was arrested to minimise the wicked harm that he did.”

Dame Cressida Dick is facing calls to resign in the wake of the murder amid demands for urgent action to restore the confidence of women in the police.

Harriet Harman MP has asked the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to take urgent action to “rebuild the shattered confidence of women in the police service”, and has told the Metropolitan Police Commissioner she needs to step aside to “enable these changes to be taken through”.

In a letter to Dame Cressida, the MP for Camberwell and Peckham, who is also mother of the House of Commons and chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, said: “Women need to be confident that the police are there to make them safe, not to put them at risk. Women need to be able to trust the police, not to fear them.

“I have written to the Home Secretary to set out a number of actions which must be taken to rebuild the shattered confidence of women in the police service.

“I think it is not possible for you to lead these necessary actions in the Metropolitan Police. I am sure that you must recognise this, and I ask you to resign to enable these changes to be taken through and for women to be able to have justified confidence in the police.”

In a second letter to Patel discussing the crimes of Wayne Couzens, she said: “It is clear that there had been all too many warning signs about him which had been swept under the carpet. It cannot be rebuilt with the attempt to reassure that this was just, as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner said, one ‘bad’un’.

“Women’s confidence in the police can only be rebuilt with substantive and immediate change.”

She called on the Home Secretary to bring forward changes including:

  • Immediately suspending officers from duty where there is an allegation of violence against women.
  • Dismissing officers immediately when there is a conviction or admission of such a crime.
  • Disciplinary action of gross misconduct, leading to dismissal, for failing to report fellow officers for an allegation of violence against women.
  • Scrutinising someone’s attitudes to violence against women, including engaging in violence during sex, as part of vetting of police recruits.
  • Fresh checks on officers who transfer between forces for allegations of violence against women.
  • Training for all current serving officers with a course to teach them to “examine their own attitudes to violence against women and recognise signs in their colleagues”.