Sarah Everard, marketing manager, lived in London and was only 33 years old. She disappeared on March 3 as she was returning home between the neighborhoods of Clapham and Brixton, after spending an evening at a friend’s house. It was nine in the evening. It vanished into thin air until the macabre discovery, last Wednesday, in a Kent wood, about 78 kilometers from the last place where it was last seen. Killed and locked up in a sack, in conditions such that only the analysis of the teeth allowed identification.
A Scotland Yard agent accused of the murder
Officer Wayne Couzens, 49, a former mechanic, married and with two children, had joined the London police about ten years ago was indicted for his murder. He worked in the unit that protects official buildings such as Parliament, Downing Street and the embassies. But he does question his employment since he had a troubling record: he was accused of sexual harassment (exhibitionism in a fast food restaurant) just three days before the victim went missing. So much so that now there are requests for the resignation of Cressida Dick, the first woman to head Scotland Yard.
Couzens, accused of kidnapping and murder, yesterday appeared for the first time in court: he had a head injury that he got himself in his cell, probably hitting the wall, and for which it was necessary to take him to hospital .
The vigil and the clashes. London police are targeted
The murder of Sarah Everard has rocked not only London, but has sparked a wave of outrage across the UK, where a debate has long been raging on how to counter the increase in femicides, to which was added the shock when investigations have come full circle around a Scotland Yard agent.
So, on Saturday evening, London took to the streets, participating in the vigil organized in Clapham Common, and entitled “Reclaim these Streets” (Let’s take back the streets), despite having been banned by the police and the High Court due to the pandemic. . Officially, the organizers of the event had asked to remember Sarah at the door of the house with a candle in her hand, but hundreds of women instead took to the streets to demand justice, particularly in Clapham Common, the area south of the Thames where the victim was. last seen. IS the police used strong manners to disperse the crowd, also arresting four protesters for violating anti-Covid regulations.
The images of the agents’ harsh intervention were posted on social media, sparking a wave of indignation and condemnations, starting with the Minister of the Interior Patel, who ordered an investigation into the incident. “Unacceptable scenes,” said the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. “The police have a great deal of responsibility for complying with the rules on Covid, but from the images I have seen it is clear that the response was at times inappropriate and disproportionate,” Khan wrote on Twitter, asking for an “urgent explanation”.
Kate Middleton was also at the memorial
Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge, wife of Prince William, also visited the park, depositing a bouquet of flowers in memory of Sarah, before the incidents began. Boris Johnson instead lit a candle in memory of Sarah in front of the door with number 10 in Downing Street.
The reconstruction of the murder
Prosecutor Zoe Martin reconstructed what happened to Sarah on the evening of March 3. Leaving her friends in Clapham, the woman decided to walk back home, a 50-minute drive to her home in South London. At 9.30 she spoke briefly on her cell phone with her boyfriend. Then the darkness. It was his partner who reported his disappearance to the police the next day.
At the same time that Sarah was walking to return home, not far away, Officer Couzens dismounted after a guard shift at the American embassy. Nothing would have bonded the two people were it not for a series of images captured by various security cameras that showed her car in the vicinity of where the girl gave signs of life last time. The car was tracked, camera after camera, to the Kent village where the agent lives. In the days immediately following Sarah’s disappearance, Couzens’ colleagues said they noticed signs of stress in him. Then, last Wednesday, the arrest was triggered.