Police failures in the handling of reports of Wayne Couzens’s indecent exposure crimes have affected women coming forward about incidents of sexual violence, an anti-rape organisation has told i.
Lisa Longstaff, a spokeswoman for campaign group Women Against Rape, said that a lack of trust in the police was amplified by Couzens’s offences and the police response to them.
It comes after Couzens, 50, was sentenced on Monday to an additional 19 months in prison for three incidents of flashing committed in the months before he abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard.
Each of the incidents – including one that took place days before Ms Everard was abducted – were reported to the police shortly after they took place, however none of them were fully investigated and linked to Couzens until after Ms Everard’s killing.
Ms Longstaff said the response affected women coming forward to report crimes of sexual violence committed against them.
She added: “Women are also changing our behaviour, being a lot more worried about being out on our own or being out at all. I do think that confidence in the police is at an all-time rock-bottom low, and I don’t know whether they are going to be able to recover their position ever because it’s fallen so low.”
Ms Longstaff said it was good that more officers who break the law are being prosecuted but called for more senior officers to be held accountable.
Police have said they are “sorry” Couzens was not arrested for the offences sooner.
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Stuart Cundy, deputy assistant commissioner of Metropolitan Police, who leads the force’s Directorate of Professional Standards, said: “Today’s sentencing reflects the impact these awful crimes committed by Couzens’s have had on the women he targeted.
“I have read the victim impact statements and it is clear to me the hurt and trauma that he inflicted on them. It is their courage that has been crucial in bringing him to justice and I am sorry for what they have gone through.
“Like so many, I wish he had been arrested for these offences before he went on to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah Everard, and I am sorry that he wasn’t.”
Despite multiple police apologies, Ms Longstaff said women are still reporting that their cases of sexual violence are not being treated as they should be.
She said: “We’re hearing a lot of apologies and I must say, a lot of us who do this, are very skeptical, because the proof is in the pudding. Women are still bringing to us, really, really appalling, shocking cases of very serious violence that’s been reported and it’s just not been taken seriously.”
She said attitudes towards indecent exposure and even domestic violence, rape and murder enabled perpetrators to “get away with it”.
“Many of us, speaking as women in general, don’t feel safe because if there’s no protection – and there’s no consequence for the men who are doing this, from the authority, which is the police and the Crown Prosecution Service – then it is just everyone for themselves, which is quite a scary situation,” she added.
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Ms Longstaff said she agreed with claims made by women who survived Couzens’s indecent exposure incidents that Ms Everard could have been saved had their reports been taken seriously at the time they made them.
“I definitely think if it had been taken seriously and he’d been stopped and obviously if he wasn’t a police officer anymore, obviously, Sarah wouldn’t have been murdered,” Ms Longstaff said.
Andrea Simon, director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said the police are not taking so-called “lower level” sexual violence offences such as indecent exposure seriously enough and institutional misogyny was impacting the service provided to victims.
“This violence is usually minimised and even tolerated as a normal part of life for women and girls, rather than being recognised as both inherently harmful and part of a dangerous pattern of risky sexual offending behaviour,” Ms Simon said.
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She added: “Very few reported cases are investigated and have criminal charges brought against any suspect.
“If action isn’t taken, it simply reinforces a sex offender’s sense that they can get away with it, and that can lead to a tragic escalation in the seriousness of their offending.”
The three incidents of indecent exposure took place in Kent but the Met’s response to Couzens’s offending has been independently investigated, with one officer due to face a misconduct hearing.
On 28 February 2021, the force received an allegation of exposure at a location in Swanley, which it says was recorded and passed to a local officer to investigate.
Couzens, who is already serving a whole life order for Ms Everard’s murder, will never be released from prison.
