LONDON: A British police officer on Friday pleaded guilty to the murder of a woman whose disappearance sparked outrage and a national debate about women’s safety.
Wayne Couzens, 48, who served in the Metropolitan Police’s elite diplomatic protection unit, had already confessed to kidnapping Sarah Everard. On Friday he also pleaded guilty to her murder, via video link at London’s Old Bailey court.
Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, went missing while walking home in south London on the evening of March 3.
Her disappearance led to vigils and protests and prompted the government to promise enhanced police patrols at night, as well as funding to make the streets safer for women.
Couzens was wearing khaki trousers and a blue sweatshirt as he appeared remotely from a high-security prison in London, bowing his head as he admitted to the killing.
He pleaded guilty last month to the charge of kidnapping Everard “unlawfully and by force or fraud” on March 3 and also to a second charge of rape between March 2 and 10.
Everard’s family sat in the court as Couzens entered his latest plea.
Everard had been visiting friends in the Clapham area and was returning to her home in nearby Brixton when she disappeared.
Her body was discovered a week later in woods some 80 kilometers (50 miles) away in Kent, southeast England.
The Metropolitan Police said that a post-mortem examination gave the cause of death as “compression of the neck.”
Couzens is due to be sentenced at the end of September.
Crown Prosecution Service specialist prosecutor Carolyn Oakley said Couzens “lied to the police when he was arrested and to date, he has refused to comment.”
“We still do not know what drove him to commit this appalling crime against a stranger,” she said.
Couzens had just finished a 12-hour shift when he committed the crime, which police were alerted to when Everard was reported missing by her boyfriend Josh Lowth.
Couzens had booked a hire car and bought a roll of self-adhesive cling film days before the murder, court heard.
A bus camera appeared to capture the moment when Couzens intercepted Couzens in Balham, south London, with the pair standing by the hire car.
The arrest of a serving officer and the heavy-handed approach to dispersing a vigil in Everard’s honor — which contravened coronavirus rules — led to criticism over the culture within London’s Metropolitan Police force.
A month later, two officers were also charged over inappropriate photographs believed to have been taken of two murdered sisters and later circulated with colleagues.
The victims’ mother Wilhelmina Smallman also accused the media and police of not taking the case as seriously as the victims were not white.
“We are on a journey to say that we all matter and actually I can now use this specific situation of my girls and Sarah, they didn’t get the same support, the same outcry,” she told the BBC.
“Other people have more kudos in this world than people of color.”
UK policeman pleads guilty to murder of London woman
https://arab.news/4y8td
UK policeman pleads guilty to murder of London woman
- Wayne Couzens served in the Metropolitan Police’s elite diplomatic protection unit
- Her disappearance led to vigils and protests and prompted the government to promise enhanced police patrols at night
Shooter kills 9 at Canadian school and residence
- The shooter was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound
- A total of 27 people were wounded in the shooting, including two with serious injuries
TORONTO: A shooter killed nine people and wounded dozens more at a secondary school and a residence in a remote part of western Canada on Tuesday, authorities said, in one of the deadliest mass shootings in the country’s history.
The suspect, described by police in an initial emergency alert as a “female in a dress with brown hair,” was found dead with an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
The attack occurred in Tumbler Ridge, British Columbia, a picturesque mountain valley town in the foothills of the Rockies.
A total of 27 people were wounded in the shooting, including two with serious injuries, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a statement.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said he was “devastated” by the “horrific acts of violence” and announced he was suspending plans to travel to the Munich Security Conference on Wednesday, where he had been set to hold talks with allies on transatlantic defense readiness.
Police said an alert was issued about an active shooter at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School on Tuesday afternoon.
As police searched the school, they found six people shot dead. A seventh person with a gunshot wound died en route to hospital.
Separately, police found two more bodies at a residence in the town.
The residence is “believed to be connected to the incident,” police said.
At the school, “an individual believed to be the shooter was also found deceased with what appears to be a self?inflicted injury,” police said.
Police have not yet released any information about the age of the shooter or the victims.
“We are devastated by the loss of life and the profound impact this tragedy has had on families, students, staff, and our entire town,” the municipality of Tumbler Ridge said in a statement.
Tumbler Ridge student Darian Quist told public broadcaster CBC that he was in his mechanics class when there was an announcement that the school was in lockdown.
He said that initially he “didn’t think anything was going on,” but started receiving “disturbing” photos about the carnage.
“It set in what was happening,” Quist said.
He said he stayed in lockdown for more than two hours until police stormed in, ordering everyone to put their hands up before escorting them out of the school.
Trent Ernst, a local journalist and a former substitute teacher at Tumbler Ridge, expressed shock over the shooting at the school, where one of his children has just graduated.
He noted that school shootings have been a rarity occurring every few years in Canada compared with the United States, where they are far more frequent.
“I used to kind of go: ‘Look at Canada, look at who we are.’ But then that one school shooting every 2.5 years happens in your town and things... just go off the rails,” he told AFP.
‘Heartbreak’
While mass shootings are extremely rare in Canada, last April, a vehicle attack that targeted a Filipino cultural festival in Vancouver killed 11 people.
British Columbia Premier David Eby called the latest violence “unimaginable.”
Nina Krieger, British Columbia’s minister of public safety, said it was “one of the worst mass shootings in our province’s and country’s history.”
The Canadian Olympic Committee, whose athletes are competing in the 2026 Winter Games in Italy, said Wednesday it was “heartbroken by the news of the horrific school shooting.”
Ken Floyd, commander of the police’s northern district, said: “This has been an incredibly difficult and emotional day for our community, and we are grateful for the cooperation shown as officers continue their work to advance the investigation.”
Floyd told reporters the shooter was the same suspect police described as “female” in a prior emergency alert to community members, but declined to provide any details on the suspect’s identity.
The police said officers were searching other homes and properties in the community to see if there were additional sites connected to the incident.
Tumbler Ridge, a quiet town with roughly 2,400 residents, is more than 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) north of Vancouver, British Columbia’s largest city.
“There are no words sufficient for the heartbreak our community is experiencing tonight,” the municipality said.
