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The Betrayal of Trust - The Case of Sarah Everard · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Imagine doing everything exactly right. I mean, you stick to
0:03
the well it paths, you wear bright clothing, and you
0:05
call your partner to say you're on your way home.
0:07
Speaker 2: Right, the things we are all culturally taught to.
0:09
Speaker 1: Do exactly and crucially, you comply completely with a police
0:14
officer who is enforcing a public health mandate. You follow
0:19
every single rule society is written for your safety, and
0:22
it costs you your life.
0:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is the terrifying paradox at the heart of
0:26
our deep dive. Today. We're examining an event that didn't
0:29
just end in an awful tragedy.
0:31
Speaker 1: It fundamentally shattered a nation's understanding of baseline security.
0:35
Speaker 2: It really did. It exposed this deep systemic rot within
0:40
the very institutions that are literally designed to protect the public.
0:43
Speaker 1: Well, today we are taking you through a real watershed moment.
0:46
We're unpacking the case of Sarah.
0:48
Speaker 2: Everard, and we are utilizing the incredibly detailed documentary transcript
0:53
called a watershed Moment, The Case of Sarah Everard, which
0:57
was produced by Truly Criminal Right.
1:00
Speaker 1: And you know, our mission today isn't just a basic
1:03
true crime recounting. It's an exploration of how a society
1:06
grapples with institutional betrayal. Okay, let's unpack this. We have
1:11
to transport you back to the specific psychological landscape of
1:15
early twenty twenty one.
1:16
Speaker 2: That's right. The UK was under a very strict COVID
1:19
nineteen lockdown at the time, and that atmospheric detail is
1:22
just well, it's not just background noise.
1:24
Speaker 1: No, it's crucial context, right, exactly.
1:26
Speaker 2: It's the fundamental context you need to understand how this
1:30
crime was executed. London is this sprawling metropolis of nearly
1:34
nine million people, but it was effectively muted. The streets
1:38
were unnervingly quiet.
1:39
Speaker 1: I remember that feeling. The anxiety was just suffocating. We
1:42
were hyper aware of the rules, you know, hyper aware
1:45
of our proximity to others, and you were.
1:47
Speaker 2: Inherently hyper aware of authority figures. Mixing indoors with anyone
1:50
outside your designated bubble was strictly prohibited. It was backed
1:54
by the threat of hefty finds.
1:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you saw a police officer during that period,
1:58
your immediate internal monologue was just checklist, like, am I
2:01
standing too close to someone? Do I have a valid
2:03
reason to be outside right now?
2:04
Speaker 2: Well, the societal conditioning at that exact moment was heavily
2:08
skewed toward absolute compliance with state authority regarding health regulations.
2:12
Speaker 1: Which completely shifted our daily routines.
2:14
Speaker 2: Right it did. It completely rewired how the public assessed risk.
2:18
A situation that might have seemed suspicious in say, twenty nineteen,
2:22
was simply standard operating procedure in early twenty twenty one
2:26
for a country trying to navigate a once in a
2:29
century pandemic.
2:30
Speaker 1: I want you, the listener, to just reflect on your
2:32
own safe routines for a second. Think about that familiar
2:36
walk home you take from a friend's house, The.
2:38
Speaker 2: Route you know like the back of your hand, the
2:39
areas you instinctively avoid.
2:41
Speaker 1: Exactly what happens when the threat doesn't come from the
2:44
shadows but pulls up in a vehicle, flashing the very
2:48
credentials meant to keep those shadows at bay. That brings
2:51
us to Wednesday in March third, twenty twenty.
2:53
Speaker 2: One, right, and to a thirty three year old woman
2:56
named Sarah Everard.
2:57
Speaker 1: Tell us a bit about Sarah, who was she?
2:59
Speaker 2: Well, there's back ground paints a picture of a really driven,
3:02
grounded and deeply loved individual. She's a graduate of Durham university.
3:06
Speaker 1: Think Cuthbert's College.
3:07
Speaker 2: I believe yes, And for those unfamiliar with the UK system,
3:11
she earned a two point one in human geography, which
3:14
is an upper second class honors degree. It shows a
3:17
high level of academic dedication.
3:19
Speaker 1: And then she moved to London right.
3:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, after graduating in two thousand and eight, she made
3:24
the move down to London. She established a really solid
3:27
career in marketing and eventually became an accounts manager.
3:30
Speaker 1: I know she had recently started a new position at
3:32
the flip Side group in Holborn, and she was living
3:35
in Brixton.
3:36
Speaker 2: Right, which was just a short distance from her boyfriend Josh.
3:39
Speaker 1: The sources include this incredibly poignant interview her friend Rose
3:42
gave to the BBC, and it really just grounds Sarah's humanity.
3:47
Speaker 2: It really does. Rose and Sarah had been on the
3:49
same university course, and Rose didn't just describe her as
3:53
a good person. She described this specific kind of empathetic
3:56
gravity Sarah had.
3:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, like how supportive Sarah was when Rose, as his
4:00
own mother passed away. She was the kind of friend
4:02
who showed up, who listened, and who never had a
4:05
bad word to say about anyone.
4:07
Speaker 2: And Rose also shared a detail that roots Sarah so
4:10
firmly in the shared reality of that specific time. She
4:13
mentioned how they would talk on the phone about how
4:15
incredibly boring their days were.
4:17
Speaker 1: Oh man, dealing with the mundane isolation of lockdown. We
4:19
were all just waiting for life to restart.
4:21
Speaker 2: Exactly, Sarah was living a wonderfully normal life under deeply
4:25
abnormal global circumstances.
4:27
Speaker 1: Which makes the timeline of that Wednesday evening just devastating
4:31
in its mundanity. She decided to visit a friend who
4:33
lived on Leithwaite Road on the outskirts of Clapham Common.
4:37
Speaker 2: And on our way there he stopped at her local
4:39
Sainsbury supermarket to pick up a bottle of wine. It
4:42
was the exact kind of small, permitted social interaction that
4:46
kept people sane during the lockdowns.
4:48
Speaker 1: So as the evening progressed, Sarah left her friend's house
4:51
at roughly nine zero zero pm. She said her goodbye
4:54
is near Clapham Common at nine to fifteen pm.
4:57
Speaker 2: And we know that timestamp is verified by CCTV footage
5:00
captured at the Bowood Road junction.
5:02
Speaker 1: So she starts her walk home and she did what
5:04
so many of us do to pass the time, and
5:06
stay safe. She called her boyfriend Josh Right.
5:10
Speaker 2: They chatted for about fifteen minutes, wrapping up the call
5:12
by making plans to meet up soon.
5:14
Speaker 1: And a mere sixty seconds after that call disconnected. At
5:17
nine point two eight pm, she was captured on CCTV again,
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this time on Cavendish Road.
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Speaker 2: Her walk home was roughly two and a half miles.
5:26
It's a walk that should have taken her about fifty minutes, and.
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Speaker 1: Looking at her decisions, she was doing everything we are
5:32
culturally conditioned to do to stay safe. She specifically chose
5:36
to take a well lit route via the South Circular Road.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, she was actively avoiding the dark expanse of Clapham
5:42
Common itself. But after that nine point two eight pm
5:45
camera flash, she vanishes.
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Speaker 1: It's that risk assessment that really gets me. Detective Simon Harding,
5:51
the senior investigating officer, noted her choices right.
5:53
Speaker 2: He did. He noted that her decision to embark on
5:56
a fifty minute walk rather than take public transit or
5:58
a taxi was on certainly influenced by COVID nineteen restrictions.
6:02
Speaker 1: Because public transport was viewed as a major vector for
6:05
infection exactly.
6:07
Speaker 2: Plus she was an active individual, the opportunity to get
6:10
some fresh air after being cooped up inside all day
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would have been a highly appealing choice. She was walking
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a familiar, logical route back to.
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Speaker 1: Brixton, I mean, a two and a half mile walk
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in the open air logically felt safer than climbing into
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an enclosed cab with a stranger.
6:25
Speaker 2: Absolutely, But the next morning, the reality of his absence
6:29
sets in. She doesn't log on for a meeting at
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her new job.
6:32
Speaker 1: And Josh, who she had just spoken to the night before,
6:35
spends the entire day trying to reach her. No text
6:38
deliver calls go straight to voicemail.
6:41
Speaker 2: The panic just crystallizes. Just after eight point zero pm
6:44
on Thursday, Josh officially reports her missing to the police.
6:48
Speaker 1: How quickly did the police jump on this, because sometimes
6:51
missing persons cases for adults can be slow to start, well, the.
6:54
Speaker 2: Police machinery kicked into gear relatively quickly. Here investigators immediately
6:58
began pulling CCTV from the surrounding areas.
7:01
Speaker 1: Right they found a camera operated by an estate agent
7:04
on the corner of Sarah Street in Brixton.
7:06
Speaker 2: And they reviewed the footage for the entire night. It
7:09
confirmed the worst she never walked past that corner, she
7:13
never made it home.
7:14
Speaker 1: And simultaneously they're looking into her digital footprint right her
7:17
personal life.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, they found absolutely zero evidence of financial distress, mental
7:21
health crises, or interpersonal conflicts that would suggest a voluntary disappearance.
7:28
Her phone was dead and completely disconnected from the network.
7:31
Speaker 1: The way the public reacted was instantaneous, and it was massive.
7:36
Her family dropped everything and rushed down to London from York.
7:39
Speaker 2: Almost overnight. The streets were plastered with missing person posters.
7:42
Her name dominated Twitter. There were desperate, urgent appeals for
7:47
anyone with a ring, doorbell camera or a dash cam
7:50
in the Clapham area to check their footage.
7:52
Speaker 1: Why do you think this specific case ignited such an
7:55
immediate reaction from the public, even before the horrific details
7:59
were known.
8:00
Speaker 2: Magnitude of the public response really speaks volumes about the
8:02
relatability of her circumstances. When the police released her description,
8:06
it resonated profoundly.
8:08
Speaker 1: The description was what a woman wearing navy trousers, a
8:11
green raincoat, trainers, a beanie, wearing headphones, just walking home
8:15
on a main road after dinner.
8:16
Speaker 2: Yes, and hundreds of thousands of women looked at that
8:19
description and recognized their own reflection. When the unspoken contract
8:25
of safety is breached in a scenario that is universally recognizable,
8:28
public terror is the immediate and logical byproduct.
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Speaker 1: So the police know they are working against the clock.
8:35
By March six, three days into the disappearance, they publicly
8:38
released the CCTV footage of her walking.
8:41
Speaker 2: They were begging the public for a needle in a haystack. Yeah,
8:44
but that desperate plea actually led to the breakthrough.
8:47
Speaker 1: But it's a breakthrough that uncovers a reality far darker
8:50
than anyone anticipated. Where did the pivotal piece of evidence
8:53
come from?
8:54
Speaker 2: It came from an incredibly mundane source. A passing London
8:57
Transport bus detective pulled the onboard CCTD from a bus
9:02
traveling its route along the South Circular.
9:04
Speaker 1: Wow, just a random bus camera. What did they see?
9:07
Speaker 2: The footage captured Sarah standing on the pavement next to
9:09
a man parked adjacent to them was a white Vauxhall
9:12
Astra with his hazard lights flashing, and.
9:14
Speaker 1: It looked like they were talking.
9:16
Speaker 2: Yes, the two individuals appeared to be engaged in conversation.
9:20
The timestamp on this footage was nine point thirty eight pm.
9:23
Speaker 1: That is just ten minutes after she was last seen
9:26
on the Cavendish Road camera.
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Speaker 2: Exactly ten minutes. And this sighting was corroborated and expanded
9:32
upon by a civilian's dashcam.
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Speaker 1: Footage from a passing driver.
9:35
Speaker 2: Right a passing driver had recorded that exact same white
9:39
Vauxhall Astra parked in the exact same spot. But crucially,
9:43
this footage showed both the front doors of the vehicle
9:46
wide open.
9:47
Speaker 1: Okay, so the investigative imperative was now singular identify that
9:52
vehicle and the man standing next to it. For those
9:54
who might not know, London is blanketed in automatic number
9:58
plate recognition cameras or ANPR, how exactly did investigators use
10:02
that network to hunt down this specific car?
10:05
Speaker 2: So? ANPR is a mass surveillance method that uses optical
10:08
character recognition on images to read vehicle registration plates. It
10:13
allows police to track the movement of a specific vehicle
10:15
across the country in real time or retrospectively by pinging
10:19
historical data.
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Speaker 1: So they ran the partial plate data they gleaned from
10:23
the dash cam.
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Speaker 2: Yes, they cross referenced it with the make and model.
10:27
The digital trail led them out of London heading southeast
10:31
and it terminated at a car hire firm in Dover
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down in Kent and.
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Speaker 1: Detect has arrived at the firm and secured the rental agreement.
10:39
That paperwork must have been the key it was.
10:41
Speaker 2: It provided a name, an address and two mobile phone numbers.
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Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting. This is the moment
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the entire nature of the case just fractures. They run
10:52
those phone numbers through the Police National database and.
10:55
Speaker 2: The database registers a direct hit. The number belongs to
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a forty eight year old, married father of two.
11:01
Speaker 1: But the detail that stopped the investigation cold was his
11:05
occupation right exactly.
11:07
Speaker 2: The renter was Wayne Cousins. He was a serving officer
11:10
with the Metropolitan Police. Specifically, he was an authorized firearms
11:14
officer attached to the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command.
11:18
Speaker 1: I need to pause here because the weight of that
11:19
really requires explanation. What exactly is the Parliamentary and Diplomatic
11:24
Protection Command? I mean, this isn't just a beat cop
11:27
walking in a neighborhood, is it.
11:28
Speaker 2: No, absolutely not. It is a highly specialized, elite and
11:33
armed branch of the Metropolitan Police.
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Speaker 1: What's their primary mandate?
11:37
Speaker 2: Their primary mandate is the protection of high profile government
11:40
buildings including the Palace of Westminster, Downing Street and various
11:44
foreign embassies across London.
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Speaker 1: So these officers have high level security clearances.
11:49
Speaker 2: Yes, they are entrusted with firearms, security clearances and the
11:54
implicit trust of the state to guard its most vital
11:57
democratic assets. To discover that an officer from this specific
12:01
command is the prime suspect and the abduction of a
12:03
civilian is a catastrophic institutional failure.
12:06
Speaker 1: The Assistant Commissioner, Nick f Grave addressed the press and
12:10
you could practically hear the structural foundation of the police
12:13
force cracking in his voice. He called the discovery shocking
12:17
and deeply disturbing.
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Speaker 2: And rightly so. This wasn't a stranger leaping from an alleyway.
12:22
This was a man sworn, trained and armed by the
12:24
hey to protect the public.
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Speaker 1: How does sociology or psychology frame that kind of shock.
12:29
Speaker 2: To understand the society or reaction, we have to look
12:31
at the psychological framework of institutional betrayal.
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Speaker 1: What does that mean exactly?
12:36
Speaker 2: Institutional betrayal occurs when the institutions that individuals rely upon
12:40
for safety, support and protection actively cause harm or cover
12:45
up harm.
12:45
Speaker 1: Like when a police officer commits a violent abduction exactly.
12:50
Speaker 2: The psychological trauma inflicted on the public extends far beyond
12:53
the victim and her family. It destroys the psychological schema
12:57
of safety. The shield you are taught from j childhood
13:00
to run toward in a moment of crisis is suddenly
13:03
revealed to be a weapon aimed directly at you.
13:06
Speaker 1: It's a profound destabilization of the social contract. So the
13:10
police know they have a ticking clock, and they move
13:12
with overwhelming force. By March ninth, they raid cousins home
13:16
and deal Kent.
13:18
Speaker 2: They arrested him initially on suspicion of kidnap and notably
13:21
on a separate, incredibly relevant incident of indecent exposure.
13:24
Speaker 1: Because they still held onto a sliver of hope that
13:28
Sarah might be alive being held captive somewhere, they authorize
13:31
an extreme legal measure.
13:33
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, they interrogated him without a solicitor present.
13:35
Speaker 1: That protocol is reserved strictly for life at risk scenarios.
13:39
Speaker 2: Right, correct, We're delaying an interview to wait for legal
13:42
counsel could result in the imminent death of a victim.
13:46
The transcripts of that initial emergency interview offer a chilling
13:50
look into the ego and pathology of the suspect.
13:53
Speaker 1: I mean, you read the transcript and you almost can't
13:55
believe the audacity. He sits in the interview room and
13:57
starts spinning this wild 's a nomadic narrative.
14:01
Speaker 2: He claims he is drowning in financial debt. He tells
14:04
the detectives that he was targeted by a dangerous Eastern
14:07
European gang who were extorting him.
14:09
Speaker 1: A gang He literally crafts a narrative where he is
14:13
the victim.
14:13
Speaker 2: Yes, he claims this gang threatened his family, told him
14:17
they were going to kidnap his wife and children and
14:19
use them for sex trafficking unless he paid off his
14:22
debt by doing what by, in his words, going out
14:25
to pick up girls and give them to them. He
14:27
actually tells the interrogators that on the night in question,
14:30
he had no option.
14:31
Speaker 1: Oh my god, And what was his story about the
14:33
actual abduction?
14:34
Speaker 2: He claims a van flashed its lights at him, a
14:37
group of men jumped out, shoved him against his own car,
14:40
took Sarah and drove off into the night.
14:42
Speaker 1: And then he tries to leverage his identity as a
14:45
family man.
14:46
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, he tells the police, I'm off work with
14:49
stress because I'm here to protect my family. I want
14:51
to be here twenty four to seven for my family.
14:53
Speaker 1: Wait, hold on, you're telling me that while he's being
14:55
interrogated by seasoned homicide detectives for the kidnapping of a woman,
15:00
he tries to sell them a plot line from a
15:02
cheap action movie.
15:03
Speaker 2: That's exactly what he did.
15:04
Speaker 1: Was this the panic of a cornered man or a
15:07
calculated misdirection from someone who knew exactly how police interrogations work.
15:12
How does a serving police officer think a story with
15:15
zero corroborating evidence, zero gang communications on his phone, and
15:19
zero physical proof is going to hold up in an
15:21
interrogation room.
15:23
Speaker 2: It requires a deep dive into the specific psychology of
15:26
an arrogant insulated authority. Figure. Cousins wasn't just a criminal.
15:32
Speaker 1: He was an insider, so he thought he could outsmart them.
15:34
Speaker 2: He likely possessed a massive, unwarranted ego regarding his ability
15:39
to outsmart the system. Because he was the system. He
15:42
understood police procedure, he knew how interrogations were structured.
15:46
Speaker 1: He probably thought they would give him the benefit of
15:48
the doubt since he was a fellow officer.
15:49
Speaker 2: Precisely, he utilized a narrative of victimization as a calculated misdirection,
15:55
hoping the police would pivot their resources to chase ghosts
15:58
rather than scrutinizing him his own digital and forensic footprint.
16:02
Speaker 1: But the investigators weren't chasing ghosts. They were piecing together
16:06
the actual anatomy of what happened on March third, and
16:09
the truth was so much darker than a panic crime
16:12
of opportunity or a gang coercion plot. This was a
16:15
meticulously planned, premeditated nightmare.
16:18
Speaker 2: The digital forensics absolutely shattered his gang narrative and proved
16:22
premeditation beyond any doubt. If we look at the timeline,
16:26
the preparation began nearly a full month before Sarah vanished.
16:29
A month what did he do On February tenth, Cousins
16:32
logged onto Amazon. He spent exactly two pounds forty nine
16:35
to purchase a police standard issue handcuff key equipped with
16:38
a double locking pin.
16:40
Speaker 1: Let's just sit with that detail for a moment. He's
16:42
sitting at his computer browsing Amazon, dropping two pounds forty
16:46
nine on a tool he intends to use to abduct
16:48
a human being with the same casual, thoughtless ease that
16:52
anyone else might buy a phone case or a pack
16:54
of batteries.
16:55
Speaker 2: And that casual preparation continued ride up to the final
16:58
hours before the abduction. On March third, CCTV captured him
17:03
at eight pm walking into a Tesco supermarket in Kensington,
17:07
West London.
17:08
Speaker 1: What did he buy?
17:09
Speaker 2: He purchased a packet of hairbands.
17:11
Speaker 1: Airbands? Why well?
17:13
Speaker 2: The prosecution during his trial would later present a compelling
17:16
argument that these were purchased specifically for the planned kidnap
17:19
and rape, intended to be used either in a sexual
17:22
act or his improvised physical restraints.
17:25
Speaker 1: That is terrifying. And then he finishes his police shift.
17:27
Speaker 2: Yes, after completing his shift, he drove down to Dover
17:30
to collect the white Vauxhall Astra he had pre arranged
17:32
to hire. He then drove that rental car back into London,
17:36
actively hunting the streets for a lone young female to target.
17:40
Speaker 1: And then he spot Sarah Everard walking down the South
17:42
Circular And this is where the strict COVID lockdown rules
17:46
we discussed earlier transitioned from a societal nuisance into a
17:50
literal weapon.
17:51
Speaker 2: This is the most crucial, horrifying mechanism of the entire crime.
17:55
The prosecutor Tom Little, QC. Highlighted this brilliantly during the trial.
17:59
Speaker 1: What did he argue?
18:00
Speaker 2: He pointed out that Sarah's perfectly normal decision to have
18:03
dinner at a friend's house during the height of the
18:06
early twenty twenty one lockdown made her inherently vulnerable to
18:10
an accusation that she had breached public health regulations.
18:13
Speaker 1: So he didn't ambush her in the dark. He didn't
18:16
use blunt physical force to drag her into the car.
18:19
Speaker 2: He used the law precisely. He weaponized his authority, the
18:22
legislative framework of the pandemic, and her own civic compliance.
18:26
Cousin Wilson's approached her, produced his Metropolitan Police warrant card,
18:30
and utilized his police issue handcuffs to execute a false arrest.
18:34
Speaker 1: He prayed on the fear of a law abiding citizen
18:37
who knew that breaking COVID rules carried severe penalties.
18:40
Speaker 2: We know this because a female passenger in a car
18:43
driving past the scene actually witnessed the handcuffing and progress.
18:47
She later provided a statement noting that Sarah was entirely compliant,
18:51
had her head bowed, and didn't appear to be arguing
18:53
or resisting in any way.
18:55
Speaker 1: Why would she resist? I mean, from her perspective, she
18:57
had been caught bending a lockdown rule by a legit,
19:00
credential police officer. Our entire society is built on the
19:03
premise that when an officer shows you a badge and
19:06
tells you you're under arrest, you comply to resolve it safely.
19:09
Speaker 2: At the station, he subverted the very mechanisms designed for
19:13
public safety. He places her in the back seat of
19:15
the rental vehicle, physically fastens her seatbelt and drives away.
19:19
Speaker 1: And the CCTV treks the.
19:20
Speaker 2: Car right The investigative timeline tracks the Vauxhall astro Via
19:24
CCTV to North Military Road in Dover at eleven four
19:28
to three pm. It is here that he transfers Sarah
19:30
from the hired vehicle into his own personal car.
19:33
Speaker 1: From there, cell site analysis of his mobile phone places
19:36
his device in the Subburds World area of Kent. This
19:39
is an incredibly rural area that he knew intimately right Yes.
19:44
Speaker 2: The phone data shows he was there from eleven point
19:46
five to three pm until just before one point zero am.
19:50
It is during this isolated sixty minute window that investigators
19:54
conclude he raped Sarah.
19:56
Speaker 1: And then sometime following the assault, he murdered her.
19:59
Speaker 2: The subsequent the coroner's report would determine the official cause
20:02
of death as compression to the neck. She had been
20:04
strangled using his police issue belt.
20:06
Speaker 1: He uses police belt. It is an almost unbearable detail,
20:10
and the timeline of the cover up that follows is
20:12
where you really see the psychological concept of compartmentalization pushed
20:16
to its absolute limits. I mean, this isn't a man
20:18
fleeing in a blind panic. This is a man running
20:21
mundane daytime errands while actively covering up a homicide.
20:25
Speaker 2: To understand how a human brain executes this, we have
20:27
to look at extreme psychological compartmentalization.
20:30
Speaker 1: Which is what exactly.
20:31
Speaker 2: It's a defense mechanism where the mind separates conflicting thoughts, emotions,
20:35
or experiences into distinct, isolated sectors to avoid cognitive dissonance.
20:40
The timeline of the early hours of March fourth is
20:42
a masterclass in this pathology.
20:44
Speaker 1: Walk us through that morning at.
20:46
Speaker 2: Two thirty four am, mere hours after committing murder, he
20:50
casually stops at a VP service station in Dover and
20:53
purchases soft drinks, carrying them out in a plastic.
20:55
Speaker 1: Bag, just buying soda in the middle of the night.
20:58
Speaker 2: By seven thirty am, he has returned to North Military Road,
21:01
where he retrieves the hired Vauxhall. At eight fifteen am,
21:06
he is captured on CCTV inside a Costa coffee shop
21:09
purchasing a morning drink and a snack.
21:11
Speaker 1: Did the barista notice anything off about him?
21:14
Speaker 2: The cashier later noted to police that he appeared slightly fidgety,
21:17
but otherwise unremarkable. By eight thirty am, he returns the
21:21
hire car to the agency, having put over three hundred
21:24
miles on the odometer in a single night, and the.
21:26
Speaker 1: Errands just continue. Later that same morning, at eleven point
21:30
zero five am, he drives back to a BP station,
21:33
buys a plastic petrel can and fills it with fuel.
21:36
He tops up his car's tank and then hits McDonald's
21:39
drive through for food.
21:40
Speaker 2: This Tuesday morning routine behavior overlaid on top of.
21:43
Speaker 1: An atrocity because he was systematically gathering the materials required
21:46
to destroy the evidence exactly.
21:48
Speaker 2: He drove to a plot of woodland that he personally
21:51
owned known as Hoades would he attempted to incinerate Sarah's
21:54
body inside an old refrigerator located.
21:57
Speaker 1: On that land, and there's a record of that fire,
21:59
isn't there?
21:59
Speaker 2: Yes, Fire Brigade records show that at twelve forty PM
22:03
a fire was reported in Hoadeswood, perfectly consistent with the
22:06
location where he attempted to burn the remains.
22:08
Speaker 1: Ultimately, he removed the remains and dumped them in a
22:11
nearby builder's bag in a pond. He also took her
22:14
mobile phone and disposed of it in a river in
22:17
the town of Sandwich.
22:18
Speaker 2: He went to incredible methodical lengths to erase her from existence,
22:23
burning the body, dumping the remains in water, destroying the electronics.
22:27
Speaker 1: How do investigators piece together this much of a ghost
22:30
trail with that level of calculated destruction? How did the
22:34
forensics team manage to break his alibi and tie him
22:37
conclusively to the crime.
22:38
Speaker 2: Because premeditation cannot account for the chaotic, microscopic reality of
22:42
a violent crime. Despite his efforts, he made tiny, cascading
22:47
forensic errors. When crime scene investigators processed his personal vehicle,
22:51
they found a small fragment of a sim card, They
22:54
discovered a blood stain on the rear passenger seat. When tested,
22:59
the DNA was a perfect match for.
23:00
Speaker 1: Sarah, conclusively putting her in his personal car.
23:04
Speaker 2: Yes, conclusively. They also found semen in the back seat
23:07
that was a direct DNA match to Wayne Cousins. Despite
23:10
the fire, despite the water, the microscopic forensic reality of
23:14
his own car betrayed him.
23:16
Speaker 1: And while the police lab is discovering this undeniable physical evidence,
23:20
Cousins is just living his life with an incomprehensible level
23:23
of detachment. The sources highlight that the day after the murder,
23:27
he actually makes a phone call to a veterinary clinic.
23:29
Speaker 2: Yes we have the actual transcripts of this call.
23:32
Speaker 1: He books an appointment for his dog, explaining that the
23:34
dog is suffering from separation anxiety and he wants to
23:37
discuss getting medication to calm the animal down.
23:40
Speaker 2: The cognitive dissonance required to prioritize a dog's mild anxiety
23:44
hours after strangling a woman is profound. He calls in
23:47
sick to work, citing stress. Then at two pm, CCTV
23:51
tracks him to a B and Q hardware store in Dover.
23:54
Speaker 1: Where he purchases two large Green Builders bags the exact
23:59
type of bags, and investigators believe he used to transport
24:02
Sarah's body to the pond.
24:03
Speaker 2: The following day, he casually sends an email to his
24:06
supervisor at the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command requesting a
24:10
transfer because he no longer wishes to carry a firearm.
24:13
He logs on to Amazon again and orders a tarpaulin
24:15
and a heavy duty cargo net.
24:17
Speaker 1: But the detail that truly made my stomach drop. On
24:20
March seventh, four days after the murder, he takes his family,
24:23
his wife and his two young children on a weekend
24:26
family outing.
24:27
Speaker 2: He takes him to Hodes Wood.
24:29
Speaker 1: He literally allows his young children to play in the woods,
24:32
mere yards away from the exact location where Sarah's remains
24:35
were hidden.
24:36
Speaker 2: It is the ultimate display of a fractured psyche. He
24:39
had created two entirely separate realities that he could step
24:42
between at will, but the investigative web was closing rapidly.
24:46
Speaker 1: By March ninth, he had failed to show up for
24:48
his police shift, again, continuing to claim illness. By seven
24:51
fifty pm that evening, the raid on his home was
24:54
executed and he was in custody.
24:56
Speaker 2: The next day, March tenth, the extensive surge of Hoades
24:59
Wood yielded human remains which were tragically identified through dental
25:04
records as Sarah Everard.
25:05
Speaker 1: The family release a statement shortly after the identification, and
25:08
it is just heartbreaking in its grace. They described her
25:11
as bright and beautiful, dependable, and fiercely principled. They said
25:16
she brought endless joy.
25:18
Speaker 2: To their lives. But as the family was forced to
25:20
begin mourning, the public shock and sadness mutated incredibly quickly
25:25
into intense, white hot fury.
25:27
Speaker 1: Because the more journalists and investigators dug into the background
25:30
of Wayne Cousins, the more they realized this was not
25:33
an isolated lightning strike. So what does this all mean?
25:37
The system had been flashing red warnings about this man
25:40
for over a decade.
25:41
Speaker 2: This is the critical juncture where the narrative expands from
25:44
the pathological actions of an individual predator to this systemic
25:48
catastrophic failures of the institutions that employed, armed, and empowered him.
25:53
We have to examine his professional trajectory.
25:55
Speaker 1: He wasn't always a police officer, right, No.
25:57
Speaker 2: Cousins spent a decade working in a family garage business
26:00
in Dover, before transitioning to a role as a traffic officer.
26:04
He subsequently joined the Civil Nuclear Constabulary or the CNC.
26:08
Speaker 1: Just to clarify for our listeners, what is the jurisdiction
26:11
of the Civil Nuclear Constabulary.
26:13
Speaker 2: The CNC is a specialized armed police force in the
26:16
UK whose sole responsibility is the protection of civil nuclear
26:21
sites and nuclear materials in transit.
26:23
Speaker 1: So they don't do normal beat policing.
26:26
Speaker 2: Correct They do not interact with the general public in
26:28
a standard community policing capacity. They are essentially an armed
26:32
security apparatus for critical infrastructure.
26:34
Speaker 1: He became an authorized firearms officer within the CNC, and
26:38
he also spent time serving as a Territorial Army reservist.
26:42
He didn't actually join the mainstream Metropolitan Police Service until
26:45
twenty eighteen, and.
26:46
Speaker 2: During his tenure at the CNC he wasn't exactly a ghost.
26:50
Following his arrest for murder, it leaked to the press
26:53
that his colleagues at the Nuclear Constabulary had actually given
26:56
him a nickname.
26:56
Speaker 1: They called him the Rapist, didn't they Yes.
27:00
Speaker 2: The Metropolitan Police attempted to minimize this revelation. The senior
27:04
mistic getting officer Simon Harding suggested the nickname wasn't widely used,
27:09
and that many colleagues were unaware of his darker tendencies.
27:12
Speaker 1: Even Assistant Commissioner Nick f Grabe stated the met had
27:15
no prior knowledge of the moniker.
27:17
Speaker 2: However, the truth emerged during an interview on BBC Radio
27:21
four with Sir Tom Windsor, who was serving as the
27:23
Chief Inspector of Constabulary.
27:25
Speaker 1: What did he say?
27:26
Speaker 2: Sir Tom explicitly and publicly confirmed that the nickname was
27:29
real and accurate. He stated that Cousins routinely made female
27:33
coworkers feel incredibly uneasy. Furthermore, Sir Tom revealed that Cousins
27:38
allegedly had a known reputation regarding an affinity for extreme pornography.
27:43
Speaker 1: Let me stop you there, because my brain is struggling
27:45
to process the bureaucracy of this. How does an officer
27:48
who makes women so uncomfortable that his own unit dubs
27:51
him the rapist seamlessly transition from guarding power plants into
27:55
an elite armed role in the Metropolitan Police protecting Parliament.
27:59
How does an internal alarm like that just get muted?
28:01
Speaker 2: It requires an understanding of what sociologists and policing experts
28:05
call colleague protection, or blue wall tribalism, the blue wall
28:10
of silence exactly so. Tom Windsor addressed this directly, noting
28:15
that in too many instances police forces failed to take
28:18
appropriate definitive action to root out toxic individuals. Instead of
28:23
formal disciplinary procedures that would follow an officer on their
28:26
permanent record, these issues are often hammon informally.
28:30
Speaker 1: Or they just encourage the got to move along right.
28:32
Speaker 2: The problematic officer is quietly encouraged to transfer to another
28:36
department or force, effectively passing the bad apple to someone else.
28:40
A retired Met Police sergeant Graham Wetton stated publicly that
28:44
in a healthy police environment, a nickname like that should
28:47
trigger an immediate high level internal affairs investigation.
28:50
Speaker 1: But the cultural ecosystem Cousins operated in normalized his behavior,
28:55
and the mis flags weren't just localized to bad nicknames
28:58
and making colleagues uncomfortable. Xctual documented criminal complaints.
29:02
Speaker 2: There certainly were. In July twenty twenty one, Kent Police
29:06
were forced to publicly confirm that back in June twenty fifteen,
29:09
a formal complaint was lodged regarding a man driving naked
29:12
from the waist down and the vehicle.
29:14
Speaker 1: And the description were alleged to be Wayne Cousins, Yet
29:17
no arrests were made and the investigation stalled, and.
29:20
Speaker 2: The timeline accelerates a mere seventy two hours before he
29:24
kidnapped Sarah Everard, Cousins was accused of indecently exposing himself
29:28
to female staff members inside a McDonald's restaurant in South London.
29:32
Speaker 1: Wait, seventy two hours three days before the murder.
29:36
Speaker 2: Yes, this was an evade allegation. Either the incident was
29:39
captured on the restaurant's CCTV system, it was formally reported
29:43
to the Metropolitan Police by the management on the exact
29:46
night it occurred.
29:47
Speaker 1: Yet despite being the subject of an active criminal investigation
29:50
for a sexual offense, he was permitted to retain his badge,
29:53
his firearm and his authority, which he deployed three days later.
29:56
So how on earth did the Metropolitan Police explain this?
29:59
So wa, okay, what happened to the vetting process? When
30:03
you apply for a job that hands you a gun
30:05
and the power to arrest citizens, isn't there an exhaustive
30:08
background check?
30:09
Speaker 2: The met issued a highly defensive statement claiming that Cousins
30:13
had been vetted in accordance with his role and had
30:16
passed the necessary processes that they had.
30:18
Speaker 1: To concede they messed up.
30:20
Speaker 2: They were forced to concede that a range of checks
30:22
may not have been undertaken correctly. Specifically, they admitted they
30:26
likely failed to check a vehicle registered to him that
30:30
was directly linked to that twenty fifteen indecent exposure allegation
30:34
in Kent.
30:34
Speaker 1: They essentially pointed fingers, blaming the failure on either his
30:38
former employer at the CNC for not passing along the
30:40
intelligence or a breakdown in their own internal database checks.
30:44
Speaker 2: And what about when he moved to the elite Parliamentary
30:47
and Diplomatic Protection Unit in twenty twenty. That is perhaps
30:51
the most damning institutional failure.
30:53
Speaker 1: Why what happened?
30:54
Speaker 2: There a port surface indicating that Cousins had not been
30:57
subjected to the mandatory enhance vetting required for that sensitive command.
31:01
This lapse was attributed to a desperate rush to recruit
31:04
armed officers quickly in the aftermath of the twenty seventeen
31:07
terrorist attacks in London and Paris.
31:09
Speaker 1: Astonishingly, he reportedly hadn't even completed his mandatory two year
31:13
probationary period with the met before being fast tracked into
31:17
that elite unit. It's like looking at a massive complex
31:20
security system that has detected multiple breaches. They were looking
31:23
right at the leaks and calling it normal. The alarms
31:26
are flashing red, the sirens are blaring, but the guards
31:29
in the control room just hit the mute button and
31:31
go back to sleep.
31:33
Speaker 2: And it wasn't just him operating in a vacuum. The
31:35
culture surrounding him was incredibly toxic. The Times newspaper broke
31:40
a story that, prior to his arrest, Kazines was an
31:43
active participant in a WhatsApp group chat with other serving police.
31:47
Speaker 1: Officers where they routinely shared grossly offensive, racist, and violently
31:52
misogynistic material.
31:53
Speaker 2: Exactly, he was not a lone wolf operating in a pristine,
31:56
highly ethical environment. He was a predator operating within a
32:00
micro ecosystem where the degradation of women was normalized, treated
32:04
as locker room banter, and casually shared among men entrusted
32:07
with public safety.
32:08
Speaker 1: Did anyone else face consequences for that?
32:10
Speaker 2: The Independent Office for Police Conduct, or the IOPC, eventually
32:14
served gross misconduct or misconduct notices on twelve different police
32:19
officers across several forces related to PC Cousins. Some officers
32:23
were investigated for sharing the inappropriate graphics and others for
32:27
illicitly sharing confidential investigative information about the murder case itself.
32:31
Speaker 1: But the most frustrating, agonizing example of these missed opportunities
32:35
came to light in October twenty twenty one. Radio dj
32:39
MB came forward with a story dating back to two
32:41
thousand and eight.
32:41
Speaker 2: What happened in her case.
32:43
Speaker 1: She was walking in Greenwich, London, pushing her infant son
32:46
in a pram, having just dropped her daughter off at school.
32:49
A man shouted at her from an alleyway, and when
32:52
she turned to look, he was exposing himself. When Wayne
32:55
cousins mugshot was plastered all over every television screen in
32:58
the country in twenty twenty one, instantly viscerally recognized his face.
33:02
Speaker 2: The details she provided regarding the police response of two
33:05
thousand and eight are a damning historical indictment of institutional blindness.
33:09
Speaker 1: Right when she went to the station to report the crime,
33:12
she described the responding officers as finding the situation really
33:15
quite amusing. As she was detailing quite graphically the evidence
33:20
they needed for the report, they were dismissive.
33:22
Speaker 2: She recalled telling them at the time, I really hope
33:25
that this is all he needs to do, because she
33:27
was so profoundly struck by how feeble and unbothered their
33:31
response was. The incident was essentially filed away in a
33:35
drawer and passed down to a local Safer Neighborhoods team
33:38
as low level intelligence.
33:40
Speaker 1: Thirteen years. For thirteen years, after a woman begged the
33:44
police to take a sexual predator seriously, he was allowed
33:47
to operate to gain authority to transfer between forces to
33:51
carry a lethal weapon on the streets of London. The
33:53
institutional blindness is just staggering, and.
33:56
Speaker 2: The public naturally was apoplectic. But the way the Metropolitan
33:59
Police He's handled the immediate public relations and the ensuing
34:02
protests just escalated a tragedy into a full blown societal crisis.
34:06
Speaker 1: In the immediate aftermath of Sarah's disappearance, while Cousins was
34:10
in custody, the initial advice issued by the police to
34:13
women living in the Clapham area was a directive not
34:15
to go out alone, which is.
34:17
Speaker 2: The literal textbook definition of victim blaming. It puts the
34:20
onus of surviving a predator entirely on the potential victim.
34:24
Speaker 1: It was met with fierce, immediate and entirely justified criticism.
34:29
It placed the logistical burden of safety on women, rather
34:32
than addressing the terrifying reality that a predator one wearing
34:36
a state sanctioned uniform was the actual threat.
34:39
Speaker 2: Isabelle Hartman, an assistant editor at The Spectator, articulated the
34:43
intense double standard beautifully. She pointed out how completely normalized
34:48
it is for society to tell women not to go
34:50
out alone after dark, but how bizarre, dystopian and inexplicable
34:54
it would seem if a police force issued a curfew
34:57
or a similar instruction to all men.
34:59
Speaker 1: And then and it was revealed that Kazens had actively
35:01
used his warrant card and handcuffs to execute a false arrest,
35:04
Scotland Yard issued follow up advice that frankly boggles the mind.
35:08
Speaker 2: What do they suggest?
35:09
Speaker 1: They released a statement saying that if a citizen is
35:11
stopped by a lone plain clothes officer, they should try
35:14
shouting to a passerby running into a house, knocking on doors,
35:18
waving down a passing bus, or calling nine ninety nine.
35:21
The state essentially suggested that citizens should actively challenge the
35:25
legitimacy of the police.
35:27
Speaker 2: The backlash to that specific piece of advice was universal
35:31
and ferocious. Patsy Stevenson, a prominent activist who became central
35:36
to the subsequent protests, called the advice almost laughable if
35:40
it wasn't so disgusting.
35:41
Speaker 1: She pointed out the sheer logistical absurdity of the advice.
35:44
Speaker 2: Exactly, you cannot simply hail down a bus or sprint
35:47
away when you were actively being detained, handcuffed and commanded
35:51
by an armed officer. But more deeply, she highlighted the
35:55
profound philosophical breakdown.
35:57
Speaker 1: It represented the idea that a democratic state must officially
36:00
advise its citizens to actively protect themselves from the police
36:03
by fleeing or calling emergency services on the officers themselves.
36:07
While that's a complete collapse of the social contract.
36:10
Speaker 2: Politicians from every conceivable side of the aisle were stunned
36:13
by the sheer, tone deafness of this advice. Labor MP
36:17
Bell Robero Addie called the advice derisory, stating it proved
36:22
the met still wasn't taking the deeply rooted systemic problems
36:26
of violence against women seriously.
36:28
Speaker 1: Even former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson took to Twitter
36:32
sitting it was horrendous to expect someone in imminent danger
36:36
from a police officer to somehow try and flag down
36:39
a bus. It was a complete public relations, strategic and
36:43
empathetic failure by the Metropolitan Police leadership, and.
36:45
Speaker 2: This rapidly escalating tension culminated. On Saturday, March thirteenth, a
36:50
vigil was planned on Clapham Common, near where Sarah was
36:52
last seen, organized by a group called Reclaim These Streets.
36:56
Speaker 1: The organizers spent days attempting to work collaboratively with the
36:59
police to hold the vigil safely and in strict accordance
37:02
with the prevailing COVID nineteen social distancing protocols. However, the
37:06
police vehemently refused to facilitate it.
37:08
Speaker 2: In fact, they escalated the situation by threatening the organizers
37:11
with fines of ten thousand pounds each if the vigil
37:14
proceeded under the health regulations.
37:15
Speaker 1: So the organizers were forced to officially cancel the event,
37:19
but the public's need to grieve, to protest, and to
37:22
physically occupy the space where she was taken was too strong.
37:26
Thousands of people showed up anyway to the bandstand on
37:28
Clapham Common, which became the focal point of the vigil.
37:31
Speaker 2: Even Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, was seen there earlier
37:34
in the day unannounced, laying flowers and taking a private
37:38
moment to reflect.
37:39
Speaker 1: The atmosphere for the first six hours of the gathering
37:41
was widely documented by journalists and attendees as calm, peaceful
37:46
and deeply respectful. But as the sun went down and
37:49
the crowd grew denser, the situation deteriorated rapidly.
37:53
Speaker 2: To analyze this objectively, it is crucial to view the
37:56
events of that evening through two distinct, entirely conflicting lenses.
38:01
From the perspective of the Metropolitan Police, represented by Commissioner
38:04
Cressited Dick, frontline officers were put into what he described
38:08
as a really invidious.
38:09
Speaker 1: Position because they were legally mandated to enforce strict health
38:13
regulations during a deadly global pandemic.
38:15
Speaker 2: Correct a large unauthorized crowd had gathered, speeches were being
38:19
amplified from the bandstand, and the police command on the
38:22
ground made the operational determination that the gathering was now
38:26
unlawful and posed a considerable risk to public health.
38:29
Speaker 1: But from the perspective of the public. The optics and
38:32
the physical reality of the policing that night were catastrophic.
38:36
You have a massive crowd of primarily women, gathered to
38:39
more in a woman who was brutally murdered by a
38:41
Metropolitan Police officer, protesting systemic violence against women, and the.
38:45
Speaker 2: Response from the Metropolitan Police is to swarm the bandstand,
38:49
aggressively attempt to disperse the grieving crowd and physically clash
38:54
with the attendees.
38:55
Speaker 1: When the public's trust and a protector is broken, how
38:57
does a society navigate the immediate act without descending into
39:01
total institutional distrust. The clash resulted in shocking scenes broadcast globally.
39:06
Officers forcefully removed women from the bandstand.
39:09
Speaker 2: Six women were ultimately arrested for public order offenses and
39:13
breaching health protection regulations. Among them was Patsy Stevenson, whose
39:18
image pinned face down to the ground by multiple male
39:21
officers was splashed across the front pages of Sunday newspapers,
39:25
becoming an iconic and highly controversial visual representation of the
39:29
breakdown and trust.
39:30
Speaker 1: The political reaction was swift, unified in its horror, and
39:34
spanned the entire political spectrum. Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated
39:38
the country must work incredibly fast to find answers and
39:42
restore faith.
39:43
Speaker 2: The Mayor of London, Sadi Khan, who has oversight of
39:46
the met, explicitly stated he was not satisfied with the
39:49
police's explanation of the evening's events, noting they had completely
39:53
failed to police the event sensitively, and he called for
39:56
an urgent independent investigation.
39:58
Speaker 1: And MP Just Phillips pointed out that the issue went
40:00
far beyond one police force or one specific commissioner, highlighting
40:04
a massive, systematic problem regarding the safety and security of
40:08
women that society was failing to address.
40:10
Speaker 2: Which brings us to the ultimate question of the aftermath.
40:13
When the public's trust and a protector is so violently
40:16
publicly broken, how does the legal apparatus of a society
40:19
navigate the pursuit of justice without appearing entirely compromised.
40:24
Speaker 1: The pressure on the legal system to deliver an air
40:26
tight prosecution was immense. Let's look at the justice process,
40:30
the court case, and the final fallout. How did the
40:33
courts handle putting one of their own on trial?
40:35
Speaker 2: The legal proceedings moved with unusual speed, driven by the
40:39
overwhelming forensic evidence and the intense public scrutiny. In July
40:43
twenty twenty one, Wayne Cosens formerly pleaded guilty to the
40:47
kidnap and rape of Sarah Everard.
40:49
Speaker 1: And shortly after he pleaded guilty to the murder race Yes.
40:52
Speaker 2: He was subsequently sacked on the police force following his confession,
40:55
stripped of his badge and pension. The sentencing hearing took
40:58
place over two highly emotional days in September twenty twenty
41:02
one at the Old Bailey.
41:03
Speaker 1: The victim impact statements delivered by Sarah's family during that
41:06
hearing were just gut wrenching. They are incredibly difficult to read.
41:11
Her mother, Susan, spoke about the unbearable, constant suffering. She
41:16
said she is haunted by the fact that Sarah spent
41:18
her last hours on earth with the very worst of humanity.
41:22
Speaker 2: She talked about how Sarah's dreams of marriage and motherhood,
41:25
her entire future were cruelly ripped away.
41:28
Speaker 1: Her father, Jeremy, focused on the agonizing reality of the premeditation.
41:33
He stated that a father's core instinct is to fix
41:36
everything and look after his children and cousins. Deliberately calculatedly
41:40
stripped away his ability to protect.
41:42
Speaker 2: His daughter and her sister Katie, broke down in the courtroom,
41:45
explaining how Cousins had treated Sarah like literal rubbish, throwing
41:49
her away.
41:49
Speaker 1: During these profound, agonizing statements, the family repeatedly asked Cousins
41:53
to look them in the eye. He completely refused. He
41:56
sat in the dock, his head bowed, rocking back and forth, refused,
42:00
using to face the devastation he had caused.
42:02
Speaker 2: His defense, Barrister Jim Sturman, QC, argued for a thirty
42:06
year minimum sentence rather than a full life tariff. The
42:09
defense claimed Cousins felt genuine remorse, was filled with self loathing,
42:14
and argued that because it was a single killing and
42:16
he had admitted the offense thereby sparing the family had
42:19
drawn out of trial, the absolute maximum penalty under UK
42:23
law wasn't legally appropriate.
42:25
Speaker 1: But the judge, Lord Justice Fulford completely rejected the defense's argument.
42:30
He delivered a whole life order. And for our international listeners,
42:34
a whole life order means exactly what it sounds like, waing.
42:37
Cousins will never be eligible for parole. He will die
42:39
in a.
42:40
Speaker 2: Prison cell, and the historical significance of this specific sentence
42:43
cannot be overstated. It was a landmark, unprecedented legal decision.
42:48
It was the very first time in UK legal history
42:50
that a whole life order was handed down for a
42:52
single murder where terrorism was not a factor.
42:55
Speaker 1: Why did the judge feel that was necessary in this
42:57
specific case.
42:58
Speaker 2: The meticulous legal reasoning Lord Justice Fulford provided is essential
43:03
to understanding the gravity of the case. He stated that
43:06
the murder had been planned in unspeakably grim detail, emphasizing
43:10
the month long preparation. But the absolute crux of his judgment,
43:15
the reason for the maximum penalty was the subversion of
43:18
the democratic state through the abuse of police power.
43:21
Speaker 1: He looked at Cousins and told him, you have eroded
43:24
confidence that the public are entitled to have in the
43:26
police forces of England and Wales. It is critical that
43:29
every subject in this country can trust police officers when
43:33
they encounter them and submit to their authority, which they
43:36
are entitled to believe is being exercised in good faith.
43:39
Speaker 2: That statement is the defining legacy of the sentencing. The
43:42
judge formally recognized that Cousins didn't just murder a young woman,
43:46
he severely damaged the social fabric of the entire country.
43:49
Speaker 1: He utilized the mechanisms of the state to commit an atrocity,
43:52
adding considerably to the sense of insecurity many citizens, particularly
43:56
women traveling by themselves at night, now feel.
43:59
Speaker 2: The Court of Appeal later reviewed and upheld this sentence,
44:02
firmly affirming that the unique extreme abuse of police powers
44:06
warranted the harshest possible penalty under British law.
44:09
Speaker 1: And the institutional fallout continued long after the gabble fell
44:12
and Cousins was sent to prison. The political and public
44:16
pressure on Metropolitan Police Commissioner cressit A. Dick was unrelenting.
44:20
Speaker 2: Initially, she stubbornly resisted calls to resign, offering apologies and
44:24
promising widespread internal reviews to learn lessons, but the drip
44:28
feed of scandals regarding the toxic culture within the force
44:32
didn't stop.
44:33
Speaker 1: Finally, in February twenty twenty two, she stepped down after
44:36
the Mayor of London, Sadik Khan, publicly made it clear
44:39
he had lost all confidence in her leadership due to
44:42
her failure to root out the systemic issues of racism, sexism,
44:45
homophobia and misogyny that the Everard case had dragged into
44:49
the light.
44:50
Speaker 2: Furthermore, in August twenty twenty two, a High Court ruling
44:52
delivered a massive blow to the Mets handling of the
44:55
Clapham Common vigil. The court ruled that the Metropolitan Police
44:58
had actively breached the human rights, specifically the rights to
45:01
freedom of speech assembly of the women arrested at the vigil.
45:05
Speaker 1: The Crown Prosecution Service subsequently dropped all pending prosecutions against
45:09
the women who attended, stating it was definitively not in
45:12
the public interest to pursue them.
45:14
Speaker 2: Additionally, Cozens himself was later formally charged in face court
45:18
for the prior incidents of indecent exposure that had been
45:21
so catastrophically ignored.
45:23
Speaker 1: Out of all this darkness, though if you look closely,
45:26
you do see a profound, enduring sense of community solidarity.
45:31
The organizers of Reclaimed These Streets set up a public
45:33
fundraiser that quickly raised over five hundred thousand pounds for
45:36
various women's charities.
45:38
Speaker 2: Annual walks and memorials, like the one organized by the
45:41
group Urban Angels on the anniversary of Sarah's disappearance, continue
45:44
to draw massive crowds to commemorate victims of gender based
45:48
violence and demand systemic change.
45:50
Speaker 1: It is a prominent undeniable watershed moment in British history,
45:54
the discourse fundamentally irreversibly shifted. For decades, the societal conversation
45:59
around women's safety was incredibly myopic. It was focused almost
46:02
entirely on what women should do to avoid being targeted,
46:05
what clothes to wear, what routes to walk, how to
46:08
tightly grip their keys in their pockets.
46:10
Speaker 2: The case of Sarah Everard forcibly violently move that conversation
46:15
to scrutinizing the perpetrators, and more importantly, scrutinizing why society
46:20
and specifically the heavily funded institutions of law enforcement, consistently
46:25
failed to identify, root out, and hold these predators accountable
46:28
before their behavior escalates to murder.
46:31
Speaker 1: We started this deep dive talking about the routines we
46:33
painstakingly build to feel safe, the architectural foundations, the well
46:38
lit paths, the phone calls to a friend to say
46:41
we're five minutes away. We do all of that, We
46:43
follow all the rules, believing that if chaos truly comes
46:46
for us, there is a robust system in place to
46:48
protect us.
46:49
Speaker 2: But this case tore that illusion away, exposing the terrifying
46:52
vulnerability beneath.
46:54
Speaker 1: We entrust certain individuals with immense state sanctioned power, the
46:57
power to detain us, to use physical force to suspend
47:00
our civil liberties in the name of the law. The
47:03
vetting processes, the badges, and the uniforms all operate on
47:05
the fundamental assumption that people who seek out this power
47:09
do so for the public good, and.
47:10
Speaker 2: That deeply held assumption that baseline trust is precisely the
47:14
weapon that wing cousins.
47:15
Speaker 1: Used exactly So, as we wrap up today's deep dive
47:18
into this incredibly difficult source material, this is the thought
47:21
we want to leave you with. It's a deeply uncomfortable question,
47:24
but an absolutely necessary one if we want to rebuild
47:27
that shattered foundation. How can a society successfully design a
47:32
system of authority that is strong enough and armed enough
47:36
to protect its citizens from the chaos of the world,
47:38
yet structurally transparent and rigorous enough that it becomes completely
47:43
impossible for a predator to hide behind a badge. Thank
47:46
you for taking this deep dive with us, Take care
47:48
of yourselves, look out for one another, and we'll see
47:50
you next time.