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Two police officers will face misconduct cases over the handling of reports of indecent exposure by Wayne Couzens sooner than he went on to cancel Sarah Everard, a watchdog has said.
A Metropolitan Police constable will face a immoral misconduct listening to and a Kent Police sergeant will face a misconduct assembly, the Fair Office for Police Habits (IOPC) said.
It follows IOPC investigations into the handling of separate reports of indecent exposure by the-then Met officer Couzens.
The Met Police constable will face allegations they breached police standards of professional behaviour for responsibilities, and for alleged failings over the procedure in which inquiries maintain been progressed into two incidents though-provoking Couzens which came about in February 2021.
On two separate occasions that month, Couzens exposed himself to female workers at a force-thru snappy meals outlet in south London.
Couzens, 50, pleaded responsible to every these offences on Monday.
Exact weeks later he went on to kidnap, rape, and cancel Ms Everard in March 2021, against the law for which he’s currently serving a entire-lifestyles sentence.
An self sustaining inquiry led by Dame Elish Angiolini is having a peek on the cancel and will maintain in thoughts the exposure incidents as share of an evaluation of whether or no longer any alternatives to cease it maintain been overlooked.
The constable is additionally accused of breaching standards touching on to honesty and integrity over parts of an account offered to IOPC investigators.
The sergeant is supposed to maintain failed to apply all cheap traces of enquiry sooner than closing a case the set a man riding a vehicle that used to be identified as belonging to Couzens exposed himself to a pedestrian in Dover in 2015.
An investigation discovered no proof to counsel that Couzens used to be identified as a police officer and he used to be no longer spoken to by investigating officers.
Diagnosis: Will police now take non-contact sex crimes extra critically?
Optimistically, the conventional attitudes to indecent exposure are altering.
It historic to be too easy to deal with indecent exposure as nothing severe, sooner than it used to be recognised that reasonably low-degree, non-contact sex crime can often manufacture into something lethal.
It used to be known to many folks as ‘flashing’ and it quiet is an bright experience that traumatised some victims. By others it used to be brushed off as pathetic and disgusting, but within the raze harmless.
In a police service nowadays shown to be macho and misogynistic in its tradition, or no longer it’s easy to behold why indecent exposure wasn’t given a high priority.
Or no longer it’s blindingly evident that PC Wayne Couzens’s predatory prison behaviour will deserve to maintain been picked up much sooner than it used to be.
If they’d acted sooner, his colleagues on the Metropolitan Police and in Kent can maintain identified Couzens as a sex offender sooner than he murdered Sarah Everard.
Interestingly every forces investigated the indecent exposure allegations with nothing like the professionalism they might be able to deserve to maintain accomplished.
We would all desire to mediate that this kind of behaviour by a police officer – or anybody else – would now bring swift and tricky action.
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IOPC regional director Sal Naseem said: “We now maintain been unable to publish our findings till now because of the the possibility of prejudicing prison lawsuits against Couzens.
“Now that these maintain concluded this might per chance well also be for the Metropolitan and Kent police forces to organise disciplinary lawsuits that can also fair maintain in thoughts the proof now we maintain gathered and decide whether or no longer the allegations against the officers are proven or no longer.”
Assistant Chief Constable of Kent Police Tracey Harman said: “The IOPC has made a resolution that the officer though-provoking must be field to a misconduct assembly on the postulate that the allegations breached the police professional standards for responsibilities and duties. It might per chance well per chance therefore be immoral to commentary extra.”
