Police officer ‘joked’ about Wayne Couzens burning Sarah Everard’s body during 2021 petrol shortage

A police officer joked that Wayne Couzens would not have been able to buy fuel to burn Sarah Everard‘s body during the petrol shortage in 2021, it has been claimed in a new documentary.

Women & The Police: The Inside Story is expected to expose the secretive attitudes within senior ranks of the police, airing claims that staff were told to delete social media messages following the damning report into Charring Cross police station.

The ITV‘s programme widens its lens from the Met and looks further at police forces across the country.

One serving West Mercia officer, Faye, claims a married senior officer groped her at a retirement party and was later promoted, despite her having complained about the incident.

She says that the senior colleague kissed her neck, touched her underneath her breasts, and when she did finally get away from him, he messaged her saying: ‘Pretty girl, do you want to come back with me to the hotel, we can chat.’

It was claimed that an officer made a joke that Wayne Couzens wouldn’t have been able to buy fuel to burn Sarah Everard’s body during the petrol shortage in 2021

When she found the courage to complain he received only a warning for his behaviour, which she felt amounted to a sexual assault, because the officer was good at his job.

She said: ‘It just felt like, ‘don’t worry about sexually assaulting or sexually harassing your colleagues because you are really good at your job.

‘You’re far too valuable to the police service to get rid of you, you can do what you like’.’

Neither the police or the CPS felt his behaviour amounted to criminal conduct.

Faye, who is now on maternity leave, says she may never return to the job she ‘really loved’ after she was transferred out of the Child Protection Team without warning or consultation.

She said: ‘I felt that I was being punished. It felt so grossly unfair. I loved that job. I really, really loved that job.’

West Mercia Police told ITV: ‘We strongly dispute that the officer was transferred from the Child Protection Team because of the allegations made.

‘Inclusion is one of our core values. We want all our officers and staff to feel safe with their colleagues and actively encourage anyone who experiences or witnesses inappropriate behaviour, whether on or off duty, to report this… without fear or favour.

ITV presenter, Julie Etchingham, interviews three female police officers in the ‘Women & The Police: The Inside Story, which airs tonight on ITV1

One officer alleges that a police sergeant decided to re-explain the facts of a violent rape case to her, by relaying the the details with himself in the role of the suspect and her in the role of the victim

‘We are committed to proactively rooting out those who are not suitable for policing’.

Another serving officer, who the programme calls Emma, says she was targeted after making a complaint about an officer who rubbed himself up against one of her junior colleagues, and was moved from her job.

She says: ‘They just came down on me like a ton of bricks, you watch the ranks close because that’s exactly what they do. You’ve got similar ranking officers investigating their mates, how on earth can you even think that that would be fair?’

A former female officer from the Met Police, known as Rachel in the programme, worked in the Serious Sexual Offences Unit, where she knew of a man working for the unit at the same time as her, who was nicknamed ‘The Rapist’.

She also alleges that a police sergeant decided to re-explain the facts of a violent rape case to her, by relaying the the details with himself in the role of the suspect and her in the role of the victim.

When she reported it to his line manager she was told he was nearing retirement and didn’t know that it was inappropriate.

She added that male officers also celebrated when a rape complaint wasn’t pursued by a woman.

And that during the petrol shortage in 2021, a colleague trained as a specialist in sexual offences joked that Wayne Couzens wouldn’t have been able to buy fuel to burn Sarah Everard’s body.

Couzens raped and strangled Ms Everard, before burning her body in a refrigerator close to an area of woodland he owned in Hoads wood, near Ashford in March 2021.

Baroness Louise Casey, the peer leading a review into standards and culture in the Met Police said she is not sure how much worse a crisis UK policing could face

Rachel says that, following a complaint to her Sergeant, the SOIT (Sexual offences investigative trained) officer told her: ‘I know your line of humour, I won’t cross that line with you in the future.’

In the interview with ITV presenter, Julie Etchingham, Rachel says on the day the damning report into Charing Cross police station came out, staff were told by a senior officer to delete dodgy Facebook and WhatsApp messages.

‘As a result of that, everyone in the Met had to watch this presentation, your attendance was noted in that meeting, a superintendent took it,’ she says.

She adds that the superintendent then requested everyone to go and have a look at their Facebook and their WhatsApp and ‘delete everything that you think could be reported’.

‘And I started looking around the room, I thought she was joking because I thought surely no one has those messages because they shouldn’t, you know, exist,’ said Rachel.

Julie Etchingham then asks her: ‘So just to be absolutely clear. So this was a senior police officer, telling serving officers to go and delete whatever they got on their phones?’

Rachel responds: ‘Yeah.’

Ms Etchingham then follows this up, and asks: ‘I mean, it is utterly shocking. It’s a cover up, isn’t it?’

Rachel replies: ‘Yeah, it was sort of, this is the official line that I have to read you but I’m telling you now, go home tonight and get rid of all the evidence’.

The Metropolitan Police did not respond to this allegation.

Baroness Casey tells ITV presenter Julie Etchingham that ‘the system leans in behind the perpetrator to protect the status quo and to keep things as they are’

Talking about the complaints and misconduct system in the police, Baroness Casey says: ‘Not one person that we have listened to has had a positive experience of the [police] misconduct system

After hearing some of the evidence presented in the programme, Baroness Louise Casey, the peer leading a review into standards and culture in the Met Police said she is not sure how much worse a crisis UK policing could face.

When reporter Julie Etchingham asks, in the light of the in-depth research the Baroness has done for her review, how big a crisis point this is for the police, she says, ‘I don’t know how much worse it could be.’

Baroness Casey says: ‘Well, they shouldn’t be in those jobs, we cannot have men like that in serving police forces, we’ve worked so hard to persuade younger women not to put up with violence, the abuse, the day to day misogyny, and to call out for what it is.’

Talking about the complaints and misconduct system in the police, Baroness Casey says: ‘Not one person that we have listened to has had a positive experience of the [police] misconduct system.

‘You know, a single misconduct allegation can take 400 days, that’s over a year to resolve, the majority of those go nowhere, which tells you something else.

‘So, in a nutshell, the system leans in behind the perpetrator to protect the status quo and to keep things as they are.’

ITV say that the Metropolitan Police did not respond to any of the specific allegations made in this programme.

Instead they referred ITV to remarks made last month by Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who said:

‘We must improve dramatically for London. But lifting the stone reveals painful truths that will not be resolved overnight…We have to prepare for more painful stories as we confront the issues that we face.’

‘As we put in more resources, more assertive tactics, as we’re more open to people reporting incidents both from within the organisation and from the public and as we more determinedly take on these cases, it will tackle the problems we face …. to finally rid the organisation of those who corrupt our integrity.’

Women & The Police: The Inside Story airs on ITV1 at 10.45pm tonight

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