An ex-police officer who investigated Wayne Couzens before he abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard says she’s become a ‘scapegoat’.
Samantha Lee carried out a ‘sloppy’ probe after Couzens, 50, exposed himself to female staff at a McDonald’s drive-thru in Kent on February 14 and 17 2021.
His pants were down and his penis was on display at the fast-food restaurant in Swanley on two occasions, a hearing at London’s Palestra House heard.
Ms Lee’s mishandling of evidence in the case amounted to gross misconduct, a disciplinary panel said today, banning Ms Lee from serving in the force again.
Speaking in Southwark, after the hearing, Ms Lee said she had been made into a ‘scapegoat’ for the Met’s shortcomings.
‘I am a young female Pc and I am the only person who has faced any disciplinary action in relation to this,’ she said.
‘There is only one person who is responsible for everything that happened and that is Wayne Couzens.
‘I have never lied.’
Ms Lee, then a Metropolitan Police constable, was dispatched to the McDonald’s branch to investigate on March 3 but failed to secure CCTV footage.
Hours later, Mr Couzens kidnapped Sarah, 33, in Clapham.
The branch’s manager, Sam Taylor, told the disciplinary panel that he showed Ms Lee the video and said it can be downloaded onto a USB stick.
Two days after Mr Couzen’s arrest, Ms Lee was told by police bosses that the suspect in the flashing investigation was Mr Couzens.
But when asked about the surveillance tapes by senior officers the following day, she lied and said she believed they had been deleted automatically.
Ms Lee denied breaching the force’s standards of duties and responsibilities as well as honesty and integrity.
In March this year, Mr Couzens – already serving life behind bars for murdering Everard – was sentenced to 19 months after admitting three cases of indecent exposure.
The third indecent exposure incident related to when Mr Couzens exposed himself to a female cyclist on a Kent country lane in November 2020.
The Met stressed that the hearing had not been held to decide whether the murder of Everard could have been prevented.
Mr Couzens, a diplomatic protection officer, used the pretence of coronavirus restrictions amid a national lockdown to kidnap Sarah, using his official credentials and equipment to carry out the crime.
Days later, her charred body was found stuffed in a green rubbish bag in a woodland near Ashford; he had raped and strangled her.
Sarah’s disappearance spiralled into grief and outrage after her body was discovered, igniting a national movement as any woman who has ever had to look over their shoulder united calling for changes in policing.
After Sarah’s remains were discovered, Mr Couzens took his family on an outing to the same woodlands, letting his children play nearby.
For Katie Everard, her sister’s death has haunted her.
‘You’ve taken from me the most precious person,’ she told Mr Couzens at a September 2021 sentencing hearing at the Old Bailey.
‘And I can never get her back.’
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