Sarah Everard: Sisters Uncut unleash smoke bombs ahead of Wayne Couzens sentencing

Activists protesting the Metropolitan Police staged a demonstration outside the court where officer Wayne Couzens is being sentenced for the murder of Sarah Everard.

Feminist group Sisters Uncut stood outside the Old Bailey on Wednesday morning with signs reading ‘Met Police blood on your hands’ and ‘Abolish the police’ as the sentencing opened.

The dozen or so Sisters Uncut activists let off purple smoke bombs as they chanted “we will not be silenced”.

A spokesperson issued a rallying cry ahead of the protest, saying: “ We know that Sarah Everard’s murder was not an isolated incident.

“We know that no sentence, no matter how long, will bring her back. We know that the police are the perpetrators. And that giving them more powers will be bad for us all.”

The group organised the infamous Sarah Everard vigil in Clapham Common against police advice leading to many arrests with the Met accused of using heavy-handed tactics to subdue the mourners.

The protest came as the Old Bailey heard that PC Wayne Couzens, 48, used his official warrant card to carry out the bogus arrest of the 33-year-old in Clapham, south London, as she headed home from an evening spent with a friend on March 3.

The Old Bailey heard Couzens was carrying and wearing “an array of equipment”, including handcuffs, to dupe Ms Everard into thinking he was an undercover officer carrying out his lawful police duty.

After being put into Couzens’ vehicle, Ms Everard was driven out of London before being raped and strangled by the police officer, who then burned her body in a patch of woodland near Ashford in Kent.

The 48-year-old wore his police belt with handcuffs and a rectangular black pouch, similar to a pepper spray holder, attached to it when he snatched the 33-year-old marketing executive on March 3.

Two people had earlier seen him wearing the kit and when asked about the equipment in a computer hardware shop, he joked he was into “kinky stuff”, before telling the owner: “I am an undercover police officer.”

In late January this year, Couzens worked with other officers on uniformed Covid patrols, enforcing coronavirus lockdown regulations.

Couzens was sacked by the Met after he pleaded guilty to murder, rape and kidnap.

Met Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick said after Couzens guilty plea to murder in July that his crime had “sickened, angered and devastated” London’s policing community.

Speaking outside the Old Bailey she said the Royal Protection officer had “betrayed” his colleagues.

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