The Metropolitan Police has lost a High Court challenge over a disciplinary panel’s decision that an officer who accessed confidential files related to the murder of Sarah Everard did not commit misconduct.
Ms Everard, 33, was kidnapped, raped and murdered by then-serving Met officer Wayne Couzens in early March 2021. He was later handed a whole-life order for his crimes.
Detective Constable Tyrone Ward was later accused of misconduct after being found to have accessed sensitive case files, despite not being involved in the investigation. A police misconduct panel dismissed these allegations in November 2024.
The Met challenged the decision at the High Court, with its lawyers telling a hearing in December last year that the panel did not sufficiently consider the evidence in the case or provide adequate reasons for its decision.
Barristers for DC Ward opposed the claim, which was dismissed by Mr Justice Murray on Tuesday.
The judge said: “In my view, the claimant has failed to demonstrate that there was any public law error in the panel’s reasoning in the decision, either by way of a failure to engage with the evidence or a failure to give adequate reasons.”
In his 26-page ruling, the judge said that DC Ward was one of seven officers identified as having accessed files related to Couzens and Ms Everard “without appearing to have a proper policing purpose for doing so”.
An audit found that DC Ward had accessed two police systems at different times on March 10 and March 11 “in relation to the detention of Wayne Couzens”.
DC Ward denied accessing the files for an improper purpose, claiming he did so as part of his duties to check the records of those detained in certain custody suites to see if they needed to be investigated by his team.
He was served with a misconduct notice in December 2023 but the case was dismissed, with the panel finding that DC Ward had a legitimate reason to access the files and that he was a “productive and conscientious officer”.
Lawyers for the Met asked the High Court to quash the panel’s decision and substitute a finding that DC Ward had committed gross misconduct, or send the case back to be considered by a different disciplinary panel.
But Mr Justice Murray said that while DC Ward did not have a “duty” to check the custody records of Couzens and other prisoners, this “does not mean he was not permitted proactively to monitor” them.
The panel also cleared two other officers of misconduct related to accessing the files, finding that they had not breached professional standards.
But it found that another three had committed misconduct, with the panel dismissing one officer, giving another a final written warning, and saying that it would have dismissed the third had they not already left the force.
