CAUGHT RED-HANDED
Bus cam footage and Sarah Everard’s blood in car snared Wayne Couzens for his despicable crimes
KILLER cop Wayne Couzens was snared by police after key bus camera footage led officers to discover Sarah Everard's blood in his car.
The monster had driven from his home in Deal, Kent, to London on the prowl for a victim to indulge his sadistic sexual fantasies.
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After plotting for over a month, Couzens hired a Vauxhall Crossland from a rental garage as it looked similar to an undercover cop car.
Despite his years of experience working for the Metropolitan Police and murderous plot, the gun officer appeared to blank when it came to CCTV.
He was caught on bus camera footage stood just feet away from Sarah on the night she vanished as he carried out a fake arrest for a Covid breach.
The chilling clip even showed Couzens flashing his warrant badge before he handcuffed and snatched the 33-year-old from the street.
Couzens then drove Sarah 50 miles to Dover from Clapham in the rental car before swapping it for his own Seat.
Prosecutors say Sarah "must have realised her fate" during the “lengthy ordeal” that lead “inexorably to her rape and murder".
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His vehicle can be seen driving away from the area at 11.43pm as he made his way to the village of Shepherdswell.
The Seat was picked up on an ANPR camera on a road in the town at 2.31am - with Sarah believed to have been raped and strangled with Couzens' police belt by this time.
🔵 Read our Wayne Couzens sentencing blog for the latest updates
Hours later - after treating himself to a bakewell tart and hot chocolate with coconut milk in Costa - he returns to Dover to switch the cars around for a final time as he takes the Vauxhall back to Enterprise.
He is then seen driving away in his own Seat in Sandwich, Kent, where he dumped Sarah's phone before buying petrol to burn her body.
A week later, Sarah's body had to be identified by dental records after being found more than 50 miles away in Ashford, Kent.
Despite being badly burnt, she was still wearing a necklace and one single gold earring.
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On March 9, police swooped on Couzens' home in Deal and seized the black Seat after he was arrested on suspicion of murder.
It was then officers discovered a broken fragment of an EE sim card from Sarah's dumped phone - linking him to the horror killing.
A blood stain was also found on a rear passenger seat which matched Sarah's DNA.
Couzens, who joined the Met Police in 2018, was charged with kidnap and murder more than a week after Sarah first vanished.
An elaborate web of lies he spun unravelled with each discovery made by the police during the major murder investigation.
The cop, who worked on the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command unit, had finished a shift earlier on the morning of March 3 and was not on duty at the time of Sarah's disappearance.
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Despite wiping his phone, data on the device linked Couzens to the abduction and eventually the area where Sarah was found.
After ditching his original story involving "Eastern European gangs", the predator pleaded guilty to kidnap, rape and murder.
Couzens today joined the grim ranks of criminals in the UK who will die behind bars after receiving a whole life tariff.
Lord Justice Fulford imposed the rare order, which just 61 criminals in the UK have, as he abused his position as a police officer.
The judge said: "Sarah Everard was a wholly blameless victim of a grotesquely executed series of circumstances that culminated in her death and the disposal of her body. She was simply walking home.”
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He told how Couzens spent a month travelling from his home in Deal, Kent, to London while hatching a gruesome plan to "hunt a lone female to kidnap and rape".
Lord Justice Fulford added: "Sarah Everard’s state of mind, and what she had to endure would have been as bleak and agonising as it is possible to imagine."
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Met Police release 3D scan showing the forensic evidence in Wayne Couzens' car linking him to the murder of Sarah Everard