Sarah Everard spent ‘last hours on Earth with very worst of humanity,’ says mother

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Sarah Everard “spent her last hours on Earth with the very worst of humanity” her mother has said, on the eve of killer Wayne Couzens’s sentencing.

Reading a statement at the Old Bailey in London, Susan Everard said she was “tormented” by the thought of what her daughter had endured.

“She lost her life because Wayne Couzens wanted to satisfy his perverted desires,” she said.

The mother said she was “repulsed” by the thought of what the former Metropolitan Police officer had done to her daughter, adding: “I am outraged that he masqueraded as a policeman in order to get what he wanted.”

“In the evenings, at the time she was abducted, I let out a silent scream: ‘Don’t get in the car, Sarah. Don’t believe him. Run,’” she added, her voice heavy with emotion.

Ms Everard’s father, Jeremy Everard, demanded his daughter’s killer look at him as he read out an emotional victim impact statement.

A picture of Ms Everard was displayed in court as he told Couzens: “A father wants to look after his children and fix everything and you have deliberately and with pre-meditation stopped my ability to do that.

“I can never forgive you for what you have done, for taking Sarah away from us.

“You burnt our daughter’s body – you further tortured us – so that we could not see her again.

“All my family want is Sarah back with us. No punishment that you receive will ever compare to the pain and torture that you have inflicted on us.”

Ms Everard’s sister, Katie Everard, described Couzens as a “monster”.

Breaking down as she read her statement in court, she said there was no punishment the killer could receive that would ever compare to the pain he had caused his victim’s family and friends.

“You disposed of my sister’s body like it was rubbish,” she said. “Fly-tipped her like she meant nothing. She meant everything.

“My only hope is that she was in a state of shock and that she wasn’t aware of the disgusting things being done to her by a monster.”

Couzens, 48, was a serving PC with the Metropolitan Police when he snatched the 33-year-old marketing executive as she walked home in Clapham, south London, on the evening of 3 March this year.

The Old Bailey on Wednesday heard how the father-of-two used Covid-19 lockdown regulations to kidnap his victim in a “false arrest” before raping her, strangling her and burning her body.

He is due to be sentenced on Thursday.