The former Metropolitan Police officer who kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard will never be freed from prison after losing an appeal against his whole-life sentence.
Wayne Couzens lost a bid to reduce his term on Friday, as three of his former colleagues were on trial for sending “racist and misogynist” WhatsApp messages.
His lawyers had told the Court of Appeal that the rare whole-life order should be reduced to a regular life sentence with the prospect of release on licence.
Jim Sturman QC said Couzens had shown remorse and “accepts his crimes are abhorrent”.
“It’s all too easy to imagine a worse case,” he added. “The matter to decide is whether or not a term of minimum 35 to 39 years before release or a whole life order is merited.”
But Tom Little QC, representing the prosecution, said a whole life order was “neither wrong in principle nor manifestly excessive”, and that the murder of Ms Everard was a “wholly exceptional case”.
He highlighted how Couzens had hunted the streets of London for a victim and lured Ms Everard into his car using his warrant card.
“This was offending of the utmost seriousness – a serving police officer using all of his knowhow, equipment and the like to act as the perpetrator,” Mr Little told the court.
“His criminality was a fundamental attack on our way of life.”
Jailing Couzens in September last year, Lord Justice Fulford had said Couzens had not pleaded guilty to murdering Ms Everard until there was no “no credible innocent explanation for the evidence gathered against him”, and that he had “sought to minimise his true responsibility” and refused to explain his actions.
The appeal was decided by a special court of five judges, who also considered a bid to increase the sentences handed to the killers of six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes.
The minimum 40-year term handed to Jordan Monaghan after he murdered two of his children and his new partner was also reviewed by the judges, along with the sentence for double murderer Ian Steward.
