British cop charged with kidnap and murder of woman

LONDON • A police officer has been charged with kidnapping and murdering Ms Sarah Everard, a marketing executive who was last seen in south London on March 3 and whose disappearance had touched off a national outcry over violence against women.

The Metropolitan Police identified the officer as Wayne Couzens, 48, whose primary role was patrolling diplomatic premises.

A body that was found last week in a wooded area in south-east England was definitively identified as Ms Everard's earlier on Friday, ending days of uncertainty.

In just days, her case had come to symbolise a long-standing problem that many women said plagues Britain and could no longer be ignored: that at home or in public spaces, many women are not safe.

"Dead women is just one of those things," opposition Labour MP Jess Phillips said in Parliament last Thursday, lamenting the prevalence of violence against women in the country.

During the parliamentary session, an annual commemoration of International Women's Day, Mrs Phillips read out the names of 118 women who were killed over the past year in cases in which a man was convicted or charged in the case. "Killed women are not vanishingly rare, killed women are common," she said.

Couzens had been arrested earlier last week in Kent, 128km south-east of London, along with a woman in her 30s who was held on suspicion of assisting an offender. She has since been released.

The police officer was being held on suspicion of indecent exposure in a separate episode that appears to have occurred days before Ms Everard's disappearance.

The regulatory body overseeing the police is investigating whether two officers acted appropriately in handling that case.

Ms Everard left a friend's house in the Clapham neighbourhood, in south London around 9pm on March 3, and she was last seen on a closed-circuit television camera at 9.30pm in a residential area. The journey home should have taken her around 50 minutes.

The remains of a body were discovered in Kent by the police last Wednesday.

"Sarah was bright and beautiful - a wonderful daughter and sister," her family said last Thursday.

"She was kind and thoughtful, caring and dependable," they added, describing her as "a shining example to us all".

The testimonies from women recounting their experiences of assault, harassment in public spaces and walking the streets in fear were met with support by lawmakers in Parliament last Thursday.

"How often have we said to a friend on the way home: 'Be safe, text me when you get home'," said Ms Angela Crawley, from the Scottish National Party. "The fear alone should tell us we have a problem."

Ms Rosie Duffield, a Labour Party lawmaker, said the testimonies of harassment circulating on social media showed that women had had enough.

"We are tired of having to risk-assess every ordinary everyday action every hour of every day of our lives," she said.

Although the authorities said last week that abductions in London were rare, Mayor Sadiq Khan acknowledged on Friday that the British capital's streets were not safe enough for women.

He also called on men to be aware of the imbalance between women's experiences and theirs.

The murder is likely to add urgency to a plan aimed at tackling violence against women and girls that Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government said it would unveil later this year.

NYTIMES