An ex-London policeman who is serving a life sentence for the kidnapping, rape and murder of a London woman was convicted on Monday of sexual exhibitionism charges, which highlighted the missed opportunities for Scotland Yard to stop him.
Wayne Couzens, 50, was sentenced to 19 months in prison for three counts, one for exhibiting himself in front of a cyclist in November 2020 and two for similar acts in February 2021 in a fast food restaurant in a petrol station in Kent, southern England.
“Sexual power to dominate”
The latest case came days before the March 2021 kidnapping of Londoner Sarah Everard, whose murder shocked the UK and deepened the crisis of confidence London's Metropolitan Police are going through.
The latter was accused of turning a blind eye to the actions of her agent, employed in an elite unit responsible in particular for diplomatic representations.
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The fact that no one from the police came to question him about these incidents can only have served to confirm and reinforce in the defendant's mind a dangerous belief in his invincibility, in his sexual power to dominate and to violate the women without being arrested
,” said the judge when handing down the sentence on Monday at the criminal court of the Old Bailey in London.
The crisis affecting Scotland Yard was reignited recently by the sentencing to life imprisonment, together with a 30-year security period, of David Carrick, a former London policeman, for dozens of rapes and sexual assaults over nearly two decades.
The independent investigation opened after the Couzens affair has been extended to the Carrick affair.
