- Prosecution sets out five words that described what happened: deception, kidnap, rape, strangulation, fire
- Everard described as 'extremely intelligent, savvy and streetwise'
- Couzens took wife and children on family trip to woods where he dumped body
- Killer likely strangled victim with his police belt
- Wayne Couzens: the former Met officer who hid dark secrets behind family-man facade
- Sarah Everard's mother tells of her silent scream: 'Don't get in the car. Don't believe him. Run!'
Wayne Couzens may have abused his Covid lockdown powers to lure Sarah Everard into his car and arrest her, the Old Bailey was told on Wednesday.
The officer had worked Covid patrol shifts in January 2021, and "was therefore aware of the regulations and what language to use to those who may have breached them", the Crown Prosecution Service said.
Miss Everard was kidnapped as she walked from dinner at a friend's home near Clapham Common, in south London, on March 3.
Tom Little QC told the court: "The fact she had been to a friend’s house for dinner at the height of the early 2021 lockdown made her more vulnerable to, and/or more likely to, submit to an accusation that she had acted in breach of the regulations in some way."
Footage played to the court showed Couzens touching his belt and holding up his hand towards Miss Everard, flashing his warrant card.
He then handcuffed her, and placed her in the back of his Vauxhall Crossland hire car before driving away with her. He transferred his victim back to his own Seat car after reaching Kent.
The two-day sentencing hearing heard how Couzens strangled the 33-year-old marketing executive with his police-issue belt after he raped her in his car.
He burnt and dumped her body in woods near Ashford in Kent.
Four days later, he took his children and wife on a family trip to the exact same spot. Miss Everard's body was submerged in a pond yards away from where her killer's children played.
In the hours immediately after he killed Miss Everard, Couzens was seen buying a hot chocolate and a bakewell tart, stopping at a garage to get a Lucozade. He even phoned a vet to organise for a consultation for the family French bulldog, which he suspected of having separation anxiety.
Couzens set about covering his tracks, first dumping his victim's phone in the River Stour near Sandwich before returning to the woods where he had hidden the body.
He set it alight inside a fridge and then transferred it to a pond some 200m from land he owned in the woodland, using builders' bags he had bought from B&Q.
As a frenzy surrounded the case of the missing Miss Everard, police got their breakthrough on March 9, when Couzens was identified as the driver of the hire car.
With officers ready to raid his home, Couzens wiped his phone. And when they arrived, he concocted a lie about owing a fictitious Eastern European gang money for unpaid call girls.
In CCTV footage played to the Old Bailey, during which the family cat is seen purring around police officers' legs as Couzens sits on a sofa, the killer said he handed Miss Everard over to the gang alive.
He later abandoned these lies.
In the days that followed, police combed the sites of interest for clues and made a number of discoveries, including a broken fragment of Miss Everard's sim card in the Seat, where there were also traces of her blood in the front passenger seat, rear seat and the boot.
Meanwhile, Couzens was answering "no comment " to all questions as he was held in custody.
Twice he was taken to hospital after trying to harm himself: the first time deliberately banging his head on a lavatory bowl and then again after running into a cell wall head first. The second time, he continued to bang his head against a wall as he waited with a nurse for an ambulance.
On June 8, he pleaded guilty to kidnap and rape. And a month later on July 9, he pleaded guilty to Miss Everard's murder.
The Everard family were in court on Wednesday, and mother Susan, father Jeremy and sister Katie all addressed the killer during heart-wrenching victim statements.
Couzens only lifted his head when Mr Everard and Katie Everard demanded he look at them when they were talking. He spent the rest of the proceedings hanging his head in the dock.
The Crown Prosecution Service asked Lord Justice Fulford to send Couzens to prison on a whole-life sentence, arguing his abuse of power as a police officer was the sole reason Miss Everard got into his car.
On Thursday, the defence team will set out their mitigation, and Couzens will discover his fate around lunchtime.
