THE MOTHER of Sarah Everard revealed the torment and rage she still suffers over her daughter’s murder as a report warned not enough is being done to identify sex predators in the community.
Susan Everard said that more than four years on from her daughter’s murder by Met gun cop Wayne Couzens, “the shock of Sarah’s death has diminished but we are left with an overwhelming sense of loss and of what might have been.”
In a foreward address to the landmark report from Lady Elish Angiolini, Mrs Everard went on: “All the happy, ordinary things of life have been stolen from Sarah and from us…
“There will be no wedding, no grandchildren, no family celebrations with everyone there. Sarah will always be missin and I will always long for her.”
Mrs Everard added: “I go through a turmoil of emotions – sadness, rage, panic, guilt and numbness.
“They used to come all in one day but as time goes by they are more widely spaced and, to some extent, time blunts the edges.”
Sarah was kidnapped by Met protection officer Couzens as she walked home from a friend’s home in Clapham, South West London, during lockdown in March 2021.
Couzens locked her in his hire car and drove her to Kent where he raped and murdered her before trying to burn her body at his smallholding nar Ashford.
Mrs Everard said: “I am not yet at the point where happy memories of Sarah come to the fore. When I think of her. I can’t get past the horror of her last hours.
“I am still tormented by the thought of what she endured.”
Mrs Everard said her family, husband Jeremy, daughter Katie and son James, “find we still appreciate the lovely things of life, but, without Sarah there is no unbridled joy.
“And grief is unpredictable – it sits there quietly only to rear up suddenly and pierce out hearts.”
Mrs Everard, of York, continued: “They say that the last stage of grief is acceptance. I am not sure what that means.
“I am accustomed to Sarah no longer being with us, but I rage against it.”
Earlier in her moving address, she wrote: “I read that you shouldn’t let a tragedy define you, but I feel that Sarah’s death is such a big part of me that I’ surprised there’s no outer sign of it, no obvious mark of grief.
“I have been changed by it, but there is nothing to see. Outwardly we live our normal lives, but there is an inner sadness.
“People who do know are unfailingly kind and have helped more than they will ever know.
“We are not the only ones to lose a child, of course, and we form a sad bond with other bereaved parents.”
Today’s publication of the Angiolini report is the latest phase of a wide-ranging inquiry being carried out by the Scottish lawyer.
It was ordered in November 2021 by then Home Secretary Priti Patel following the Old Bailey conviction of Couzens two months earlier for the kidnap, rape and murder of 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah.
In February last year, the first part of the report castigated police for failures to stop Couzens in his tracks despite a history of indecent exposure incidents.
Today’s report was focused on female safety in public places and warned that police are not doing enough to identify sex predators in the community.
A lack of data available on numbers of women raped in public spaces, sexual assaults and indecent exposure incidents amounts to a “critical failure,” the report said.
Inquiry panel chair Lady Elish called for a greater prevention focus on “identifying and targeting the predatory men who commit these crimes.”
Unveiling her report at a central London media briefing, Lady Elish warned: “There are still many victims because there are still many perpetrators of sexually motivated crimes who escape detection and prosecution.”
She said there was now “a greater spotlight on the safety of women in public” which should make them feel more secure, but said: “many do not not.”
A survey carried out by the inquiry team revealed that half of all women questioned had experienced an incident in the last three years which made them feel unsafe.
And three-quarters of women aged between 18 to 24 reported feeling unsafe in public because of the actions and behaviour of men.
Lady Elish said that at every stage of her inquiry’s work, “my thoughts have always been focused on Sarah Eeverard, whose life was cruelly cut short, devastating her lovin family and friends.”
She added: “My report lays bare the continued pain Sarah’s family experienced at the loss of their beloved daughter.”
But Lady Elish continued: “Since Sarah’s death, more women have had their lives taken from them at the hands of dangerous perpetrators.”
She added that in many cases the perpetrators “were previously known to the authorities.”
Lady Elish went on: “Prevention is most effective when it confronts those who cause harm.
“And yet, too many opportunities to confront violent perpetrators have not been acted upon.
“Too many women are victimised, and too many lives are lost or irrevocably changed forever.”
