Killer police officer Wayne Couzens handcuffed and arrested Sarah Everard in a fake Covid patrol before he raped and murdered her.
Evil Couzens, who at the time was a serving Metropolitan Police officer used his knowledge of policing to rape, kidnap and strangle Sarah.
The 33-year-old marketing executive was subjected to a terrifying 80 mile journey after she was "arrested" by Couzens before he raped and murdered her.
Prosecutor Tom Little QC told the Old Bailey on Wednesday Couzens had told a psychiatrist he strangled Ms Everard with his police-issued belt.
He said: "Given all the circumstances this would be consistent with his police belt."
The Old Bailey heard that Couzens had bought handcuffs from Amazon less than a month before killing Sarah and kept them in his car so he could carry out his horrifying crimes.
Couzens, 48, targeted the 33-year-old marketing executive, as she walked from from a friend's house through Clapham on March 3 this year.
The court heard Sarah had left her friend's house at around 9.10pm and called her boyfriend. The call lasted 14 minutes and the couple had made plans for the rest of the week. It was the last anyone heard from her.
Prosecutor Tom Little told the court that Sarah was "arrested" by Wayne Couzens who handcuffed her after showing his warrant card. He said the kidnapping took less than five minutes.
Chilling dashcam footage captured the fake arrest and a couple noticed Couzen's rented white and black Vauxhall Crossland pulled up with its hazard lights on.
Mr Little said: [In the footage] "Sarah Everard is standing on the pavement, behind the car, facing the defendant who is a few feet away.
“The defendant appears to touch his belt and to be holding up his hand towards Sarah Everard, as if showing her something in it.
“The front seat passenger noticed what she described as a man and a woman standing on the pavement with the man behind the woman.
“The immediate impression the passenger formed was that she was witnessing an undercover police officer arresting a woman, whom she assumed “must have done something wrong”.
“So surprised was the witness by what she had seen, as she considered it to be relatively unusual and not something she had ever witnessed before, she remarked to her husband, ‘I’ve just seen a woman being handcuffed’."
Mr Little said that at some point after her arrest, having not been taken to a police station, "Sarah Everard must have realised her fate."
The court heard that Couzens's own Seat car was in a bad condition and three days before he killed Sarah, he hired a vehicle from Dover. Couzens had spent weeks planning the crime.
Married dad-of-two Couzens spent hours driving around west and south London before targeting his victim.
Mr Little told the court that Sarah had planned to have dinner with a friend in the Clapham Junction area of south London that night and "would have walked all the way back had she not have been kidnapped."
The prosecutor said Couzens must have taken Sarah's mobile phone from her and removed the sim card, which he later tried to destroy before raping and strangling her.
The court was shown CCTV of the defendant’s hire vehicle in Dover shortly after 11.30pm as he transferred his victim to his own car.
Couzens then drove to a remote rural area north-west of Dover which he knew well where he parked up and raped Ms Everard.
The court has been told Sarah was likely to have been killed before 2.31am, when Couzens' car was seen on camera, although they cannot know for sure.
A day after murdering Ms Everard, Couzens went to a BP petrol station at Whitfield Services, Dover in the Seat - where he bought an empty green petrol can for £7.99 and filled the can from one of the petrol pumps.
He would use that petrol to burn Miss Everard's body.
Mr Little said he bought two bottles of still water, an apple juice and a Lucozade orange using his Mastercard.
After the murder Couzens’ phone was recorded near Ashford at 3am, when he is believed to have hidden her body inside a fly-tipped fridge in woods. Evidence of some of Sarah's clothing and remains were found in the fridge, which prosecutors said must have been moved "several times" to conceal her, burn her body and move the remains to the pond in the days that followed her killing.
The morning after, at around 8.14am, Couzens was seen at a Costa coffee in Dover before then took the hire car back and drove to Sandwich and threw Sarah’s phone in a flood relief channel. Part of her sim card was later found in the car.
Couzens returned home the same time he would have done for a nightshift. The court has heard he rang the dentist and rearranged appointments for his two children. The next day he bought fuel which he would go on to use to burn Sarah's body, which he left on fire while "he went to do other things."
Mr Little said the witness saw a "large orange and yellow flame" in Hoad's Wood in Kent at around 12.45pm on March 5. He said this was consistent with where Couzens had burned Sarah's body, clothing and possessions with the petrol he had purchased earlier that day. Later that day, the court heard Couzens then moved Sarah's body to the pond where she was found after purchasing two builders bags from B&Q.
Just a day later, Cousens sent an email to his sergeant telling him he was unable to carry firearms at that time, citing the stress of his "payroll situation." He told his sergeant he had provisionally.
Chillingly Couzens then returned to the woods two days after he disposed of Sarah's body, on March 7, with his wife and two children.
Mr Little said: “He took his family on a trip to the very woods where days earlier he had left Sarah’s body, then returned to burn it and then returned again to move and hide it.
“He allowed his children to play in relative close proximity to where Sarah’s body had been dumped in the pond.”
The court heard the firearms-trained parliamentary and diplomatic protection officer wiped his phone just minutes before he was arrested at his home in Deal, Kent, on March 9. When he was interviewed at Wandsworth Police Station and shown a picture of Sarah, Couzens claimed he had never met her. He also claimed scratches on his head were from his dog.
Police seized items from Couzens's home including a penis pump, a roll of adhesive film, a petrol can, boxes of latex gloves, a police badge and plastic cuffs.
Sarah's body was found on March 10, and she was identified through her dental records.
Her mother Susan, father Jeremy, and sister Katie read their victim impact statements to the court. When Sarah's father read his, he asked Couzens to face him so he could read his statement to him, which he did.
He said: "The horrendous murder of my daughter, Sarah, is in my mind all the time and will be for the rest of my life.
"A father wants to look after his children and fix everything and you have deliberately and with premeditation stopped my ability to do that."
When asked if he could tell police anything about where to find Sarah, Couzens said he was in "financial s***" and had been "leant on" by a gang to pick up girls and give them to them. He said he had refused but was forced to comply when he was threatened.
The court heard that he said: “If I could do something to get her back at this minute I would."
The Old Bailey was also told that: "At the same time I’ll do it again if it means saving my family... these guys meant business," in relation to what he claimed was a south eastern European human trafficking gang he said had threatened his family.
The court heard that while at Wandsworth Police Station, Couzens deliberately hit his head on the toilet bowl in his cell, sustaining a cut to his head. He was taken to hospital where he underwent a CT scan and then returned to the station to be placed under supervision. He told a nurse he had had suicidal thoughts for around two weeks.
While he was under investigation, a number of items were recovered from Couzens' Seat car and included a broken fragment of Sarah's mobile SIM card, three clear plastic gloves, a handcuff key, two black-coloured Velcro straps attached to one another to form a loop, a craft knife, a head torch on an elasticated band, an unused condom, several hairbands and a sachet of lubricating jelly.
Prosecutor Tom Little QC says Couzens bought a similar pack hairbands from a Tesco store on the evening he kidnapped Ms Everard "for the purposes of the planned kidnap and rape", possibly to maintain an erection or to restrain her.
A blood stain was found on a rear passenger seat which matched Ms Everard's DNA, and semen matching Couzens' DNA was found on the back seat, the court heard.
Mr Little said: "Whilst it is impossible to summarise what the defendant did to Sarah Everard in just five words, if it had to be done then it would be more appropriate to do so as deception, kidnap, rape, strangulation, fire."
Ms Everard was described by a former long-term boyfriend as "extremely intelligent, savvy and streetwise" and "not a gullible person", the court heard.
At the time, it is understood Couzens was in debt of around £29,000 and was involved in a dispute with the Metropolitan Police over his pay scale.
Two members of the public had reported seeing Wayne Couzens wearing his police belt with handcuffs while he was off-duty and he had told them he was an "undercover officer."
He also had a profile on Match.com, where he gave false details about himself. The court heard he was in contact with an escort through an escort service.
Couzens will be sentenced on Thursday.
