Two Metropolitan Police officers have been jailed over racist, misogynist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic and ableist messages shared in a WhatsApp group containing Wayne Couzens.
Prosecutor Edward Brown KC told Westminster Magistrates’ Court the group included “grossly racist, sexist, misogynistic” messages, as well as those discussing rape, domestic abuse and violence against women.
The posts were discovered in a WhatsApp group called “Bottle and Stoppers/Atkin’s Puppets” after Couzens was arrested for kidnapping, raping and murdering Sarah Everard in March 2021.
Serving PC Jonathon Cobban, 35, and former officer Joel Borders, 45, had denied charges of sending grossly offensive messages before being found guilty.
Two officers on trial talked about “struggle snuggles” after one described pinning a 15-year-old girl to the floor during an incident, and one suggested he would “rape and beat” a named female police officer.
While giving evidence in their defence, the men argued that the messages had been “banter”, jokes or misinterpreted by the prosecution.
In one exchange, Borders wrote of a female police officer: “She will use me as an example. Lead me on then get me locked up when I rape and beat her! Sneaky b****.”
Other posts saw chat participants joking about police performing sex acts on domestic violence victims, with Cobban writing in June 2019: “That’s alright, DV victims love it … that’s why they are repeat victims more often than not.”
Borders replied: “No, they just don’t listen!” Responding to a colleague’s account of responding to domestic violence incidents days later, Borders wrote: “Bet they all had one thing in common. Women that don’t listen.”
During the same exchange, Cobban described racially diverse areas of London as a “s***hole”, described a member of the public who asked him for directions as “yellow” and remarked: “Not even the shops are in English.”
Borders wrote that he “felt like a spot on a domino” in the London district of Feltham and described Hounslow as “twinned with Baghdad”.
In April 2019, Borders wrote that he could not wait to “shoot some c*** in the face” with a police firearm and Cobban replied: “Me too. I want to taser a cat and a dog to see which reacts better … same with children. Zap zap you little f***ers.”
Borders replied “and a couple of downys?”, in what prosecutors said was a reference to people with Down’s Syndrome.
In August 2019, Cobban described an incident where he had to look after a person who needed hospital treatment after self-harming as an “attention-seeking, self-harming f*g”.
Below is the full list of messages from the chat as revealed in court.
Unnamed participant: Mate they aren’t gonna ditch you with your skill sets, unless you [perform a sex act on] a DV [domestic violence] victim!
Unnamed participant: Oh, Jon in that case you’re probably f***ed.
Jonathan Cobban: That’s alright, DV victims love it … that’s why they are repeat victims more often than not.
Joel Borders: No, they just don’t listen!
