Photograph: BBC/Everard family and friends/PA
We begin with Sarah Everard’s last moments in London. A CCTV video of the shop she went into on the way to a friend’s house for dinner. Doorbell camera footage of her walking home down a residential street. Finally, grainy film from a bus showing her in conversation with Wayne Couzens, the man who subsequently kidnapped, raped and killed her.
Some of the circumstances surrounding Everard’s murder were highly unusual: it is believed that Couzens, then a serving officer in the Metropolitan police, tricked the 33-year-old into getting into his car by convincing her she was being arrested due to a breach of lockdown-related restrictions. Yet, as this footage emphasises, many of them were also dreadfully ordinary. And which woman doesn’t walk the streets after dark, worrying – sometimes only theoretically, sometimes with heart-rattling urgency – that they might be under threat from a man? Everard’s case struck such a terrible chord because so many women reacted to her death in exactly the same way: it could have been me.
Sarah Everard: The Search for Justice, made with the blessing of Everard’s parents, attempts to capture that sense of elemental fear. But its main focus is putting the myriad facets of this complex and far-ranging crime in one place: the investigation, the public response, the fallout for the police and the UK’s wider epidemic of misogynistic violence. It is a stomach-churning watch – Couzens’ police interviews, first at his home, later in custody, are almost unbearably disturbing – but, condensing months of awful news into an hour-long documentary is powerful, and encouraging people to remember this horrifying case is clearly necessary. Everard’s murder initially prompted high-profile conversations about improving women’s safety. They didn’t last long.
Everard disappeared in Clapham, London, on 3 March 2021, and the documentary recruits senior investigating officer Katherine Goodwin and BBC news correspondent Frankie McCamley to explain how the case became nationwide news. Goodwin outlines how her team established a connection to Couzens thanks to the footage from the bus, eventually discovering Everard’s body in a woodland in Kent. She also recounts her shock at finding out that her prime suspect was a serving police officer. In 2024, it is perhaps not a feeling many viewers will share.
What is galling – and devastating – is the revelation that Couzens had been accused of indecent exposure just days prior to his attack, and numerous times since 2015, yet there had been zero repercussions for his career. The first findings from the Angiolini inquiry into Couzens’ employment, published last week, are even harder to process: there had been allegations he had committed a serious sexual assault against a child before joining the police.
This is where horror turns to fury, fuelled by footage of the Clapham Common vigil held in Everard’s memory that showed women being manhandled by male police officers for flouting Covid restrictions. The irony is sickening – this documentary ensures it piles up. The Met issue guidance telling people to “just run” if they feel scared of a police officer. In a stunning example of victim-blaming, the police, fire and crime commissioner for North Yorkshire insists women “need to be streetwise about when they can be arrested,” as George Eustice MP claims Couzens was simply “one bad apple”.
One bad apple? This isn’t even about a rotten tree. Following Couzens’ conviction, multiple other police officers were imprisoned for offences including rape, grooming and sharing images of female murder victims. Screenshots from Couzens’ WhatsApp exchanges with other police officers show them joking about assaulting women. This documentary doesn’t explore the idea that some men wanting to assault women with impunity might be attracted to a career in the police, but it does make it clear that male violence against women has long, sprawling roots in our society.
The film will make you furious. Outrage, however, is far easier to take than horror and despair, emotions this unflinching documentary never shies away from. We see Couzens visit a coffee shop hours after the murder and hear him booking a vet appointment over the phone, sounding completely unruffled as, Goodwin believes, “he was stood burning Sarah’s body”. In those moments, he is a monster indistinguishable from any other man.
Fittingly, there is no glimmer of hope to end on. We can give credit to Goodwin: Couzens has a whole life order, meaning he will never be released from prison. Yet, it is possible to find only a modicum of solace in this. The Angiolini report has generated apologies and promises of change but, as we speak, there is absolutely no indication things are materially improving. “I don’t think the incidences of violence against women and girls is reducing or decreasing in any way,” says Tom Little, the prosecuting barrister in the case, in what you could think of as this emotionally draining documentary’s bleak takeaway message. “In fact, it would appear to me that it’s getting worse.”
• Sarah Everard: The Search for Justice was on BBC One and is available on iPlayer.
