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Crime

29th Jul 2022

Judges reject Wayne Couzens request to have sentence reduced for murdering Sarah Everard

Steve Hopkins

Wayne Couzens should die behind bars, judges ruled

Wayne Couzens has had his bid to reduce his life sentence for the kidnapping, rape and murder of Sarah Everard reduced.

In May, the former Met police officer’s lawyers that he did not deserve to spend the rest of his life behind bars over Everard death on 3 March 2021.

Court of Appeal judges, led by Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett of Maldon rejected Couzens pleas in a ruling delivered on Friday.

Couzens had previously been handed a whole-life term for the rape and murder of 33-year-old Sarah Everard who he kidnapped off the street under the guise of a covid stop.

Couzens whole life term sentence was the first time it was imposed for a single murder of an adult not committed in the course of a terror attack.

Appealing against the whole-life term, Couzens’s lawyers claimed he deserved “decades in jail’”but argued a whole-life term was excessive, Metro reported.

Everard was kidnapped in South London as she walked home from a friend’s house near Clapham Common.

Couzens than drove her to near Dover where he raped and assaulted her, before burning her body and disposing of her remains in a nearby pond.

A court case is currently underway over Whatsapp messages sent in a group chat of officers, which included Couzens.

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