A makeshift memorial pays tribute to Sarah Everard in London, Britain, on March 16, 2021, after she’d been abducted and killed by a former police officer. File Photo by Andy Rain/EPA-EFE
March 18 (UPI) — British authorities said Friday that former London police officer Wayne Couzens exposed himself in public multiple times last year just weeks before he abducted, raped and killed a 33-year-old woman. The Crown Prosecution Service said that Couzens has been charged with four counts of indecent exposure in January and February 2021. Just weeks later, he killed Sarah Everard after luring her into his police car.
All four charges say that Couzens, a former Metropolitan Police officer, “intentionally exposed his genitals intending that someone would see them and be caused alarm and distress.” The exposures occurred between late January and late February of 2021, prosecutors said in a statement Friday.
The new charges are unrelated to Everard’s death.
Couzens, 49, pleaded guilty last July to taking Everard to an isolated location in Kent where he raped and killed her and set fire to her body. Her remains were later found in a bag. He was sentenced to life in prison in September.
Prosecutors said that Couzens was posing as an undercover officer at the time and falsely told Everard that she’d violated a COVID-19 restriction.
Couzens is scheduled to appear in court on April 13 to face the new charges.
