A whole life order for Wayne Couzens

[ElleStartingOver]

I cried as the verdict came in.

May he suffer every single day.

I am pleased with the sentence. But bet he kills himself in less than a year. I would much prefer him to live out forty years inside.

I hope he see's his whole life tariff out. No quick get out with a suicide. Imagine never feeling a summer breeze, walking along a beach, wearing what you want, choosing what to eat and all other life's wee pleasures and not being able to do any of those. That's the punishment. The violent retributions that some posters go on about are they the same posters who abhor violent actions in other areas of life. He will be looking over his shoulder forever and the constant fear is often worse than the actual violence.

Can he appeal it?

Can the sentence be reduced on appeal?

Could the judge have passed this sentence knowing it’s the only way to keep him behind bars for a very long time if does appeal and does have his sentence reduced? So life down to 25 years for eg instead of 25 years down to 20.

@ZealAndArdour

Death is no punishment, it’s relief from consequences.

Whole life sentence.

What you get sometimes is ‘do Gooders’ who claim these people are truly sorry and have found God etc and then campaign to get it changed. Was it MH that had one of the bishops campaigning to get her out as she was now a ‘Christian’? That’s what happens to these vile people or making excuses for them. Eg they were abused children so it wasn’t really their fault.

I thought whole life sentences were for this type of crime or for people who committed multiple murders - it should be the same for rapes - a whole life tariff where life means life. Poor Sarah I sobbed and sobbed thinking of her final hours on earth and how she was taken and must of known and the sheer planning and depravity of it. I don’t wish him a long life but I agree with her parents that the whole is better for having him a cell for the rest of his life.

@VladmirsPoutine - I shall try to answer your question ( Ds doing law training - I am not a lawyer )

So As I believe a whole life tariff is a great many years in prison (between about 20 & 30 ? years ) - but at some point ( I think judge sets minimum term ) there is the possibility of parole given the judgement by the parole board at the at time of parole

A whole life order is exactly life imprisonmnt - i.e. you are in prison until you die with no possibility of parole - which is what Couzens has. These are rarer.

There will be those better placed to explain but that is how DS explained it to me.

but I hope the guards turn a blind eye and one or two prisoners get to him first

And do what? Beat him? Maim him? Kill him? Debase themselves further?

You do realise his fellow inmates will be scum too. They won't be heroes giving him one for Sarah, but likely men who have damaged the lives of innocent people.

Justice has been done. Let's hope the Met are now held to account.

@AmanitaRubescens - This is a very rare case , obviously - tragic and dreadful. But I hope that those who are proper , decent ( not sure if those are the right words but I hope people know what I am aiming at ) serving police officers will have a way of voicing an opinion about those they have a concern about - So absolutely not a snooper's charter , but that no one thinks their job is at risk if they have a legitimate and significant concern. This to me me would be a lesson learned.

I am struggling with this sentence. Not because I don’t think he deserves it, because I do.
But I’m feeling for all the other victims of sexual abuse and murder whose perpetrators didn’t get nearly the same sentence. Wayne’s sentence is because he was a police officer and they need to show that they’ll be harsh.

What I’m saying it’s about time we standardised sentencing.

I think he’ll have killed himself within a year.

@JoshLymanIsHotterThanSam

Totally agree.

@Northernsouloldies

I hope he see's his whole life tariff out. No quick get out with a suicide. Imagine never feeling a summer breeze, walking along a beach, wearing what you want, choosing what to eat and all other life's wee pleasures and not being able to do any of those. That's the punishment. The violent retributions that some posters go on about are they the same posters who abhor violent actions in other areas of life. He will be looking over his shoulder forever and the constant fear is often worse than the actual violence.

Agreed. Those posters calling for prison officers to look the other way if he gets attacked in prison - that's one of the problems that the Met are being criticised for - that they looked the other way and didn't act quickly enough to get Couzens off the force. And yet here you are urging for corrupt behaviour to continue?

He's been sentenced and the sentence is the harshest one the judge can impose. And Couzens now has to live with what he has done every single day of his natural life. All this blood lust for further violence and law-breaking serves what purpose exactly?

@JoshLymanIsHotterThanSam Actually to a great extent I agree with you . Given the tariffs / sentences are as they are , I believe in general someone who kills / assaults a police officer whilst carrying out their duty gets a harsher sentence . As , the other way around , whilst acting as a police officer Couzens has had a harsher sentence.

I suppose re the parameters of sentencing there is a discussion to be had - ultimately I think ( within guidelines ) judges have some discretion.

@ZealAndArdour

It’s a shame he won’t be in gen pop where he’d feel the full fury of his block mates.

Richard Huckle wasn't in general pop when he met Paul Fitzgerald, am I a bad person for thinking Couzens would be a suitable cell mate?

@OrangeJuiceAndNoodles

I just don't understand why somebody with a nice life, a good job... why he'd throw it all away for something so dispicable. Surely he knew this would be the result. Was it worth it?

These men, their backgrounds and private habits need to be studied intensely. Why does it keep happening? I'll never understand but there must be certain drivers that these monsters have in common.

My heart is breaking for Sarah's family.

I was about to post the very same thing. What an earth was he thinking? He's a policeman for heaven's sake. He knows the score. And the likely outcome. He's either extremely thick or extremely arrogant to think he would get away with it. Did he think for a moment about life imprisonment? Or his own wife and children?

The judge said something about him buying garden bags etc after he had murdered Sarah. Does that mean he didn't intend to kill? None of that makes sense because he must have known that if you rape someone, then they will probably be able to identify you. He must have given some thought as to his actions afterwards.

RIP Sarah. I can't bear to think of what she went through during that drive to Kent. Or the injustice of him arrogantly ending her life, with all its promise, almost on a whim. He deserves every second of that life sentence and I hope he has a rotten time in jail.

The police have a lot to answer for here. It's one thing not looking more closely at an officer who is known jokingly as "The Rapist" among his colleagues (although it makes you wonder about the office culture in which that sort of joke is funny and acceptable) but quite another level of negligence not to investigate a serving policeman, in a position of responsibility with the public, who has three incidents of exposure to his name. There's something truly wrong there. It's well known now that flashing can lead to more serious crimes. Who let him get away with that?

His poor innocent kids. They have to carry his guilt and shame for life. I hope they are able to change names/ move on and start anew

And sarahs family. They will have to live with the pain and knowledge of her final hours

A life in prison doesn't sound all that bad in comparison. I hope they can find a way to make it unbearable for him

And to any man (or woman) who calls somebody a rapist as a joke. That gives me chills

It was the right sentence
Today I feel for Sarah’s family - I heard their statements to the court yesterday. I cried

I also feel for the wife and children of this ‘man’ His parents and wider family too
I hope they can all rebuild something of a ‘normal’ life
There are no winners here

The subhuman scum pleaded guilty to the charges and I don't understand this as since then he has not shown any remorse apparently. This makes me think that he just did it as he knew they would pin it on him and he thought he would get life e.g. 20 years and then out in 10. I think this was a calculated move.

The scum must also be unbelievably thick. He is a police officer and had climbed the ranks a bit. Surely he knows about CCTV, bus cameras, how your phone is traced and how hire cars are traced. He left more evidence than your average criminal. The scourge on humanity must be dense to even think that he would have got away with it. This to me says that our police are not the sharpest lot.

Finally, from now on, when stopped by a plainclothes police officer twice our size in an unmarked car, in the dark, we are to resist arrest and call into 999 to make sure they are legitimate.

Or.....the met police could do their job and fire Cressida Dipstick, have a major overhaul of their culture, misogyny, and recruitment, and do what our tax payers money pays them to do.

I sincerely hope they manage to prevent him killing himself. I hope he has no route out of living a hellish existence for another forty years at least.
I too can’t imagine what he thought was going to happen.

All these posters wishing that male violence continues in prison, with officers turning a blind eye,.. dear me. If as a nation we want less male violence then wishing for it in prisons is very short sighted.

He's locked up for life. His life will of necessity be absolutely horrible. His whole family is suffering horribly, terribly, at his actions in terms of shame and other peoples misdirected anger at them.

Every new police recruit should have a more thorough background check on top of the DBS, including looking at their social media accounts, domestic violence even when not charged, attitudes to women,

Read the Judges full sentencing remarks. He says
“some of his colleagues have spoken supportively of him”
Wtaf?? How can any of his former colleagues say anything in support of this man. This really stood out to me as what hope do we have when other officers were still speaking up for him knowing what he did?
It’s right he spends his whole life in prison (although I also think the coward will commit suicide) but I worry that nothing will really change.

@speakupattheback you’re right. I guess for me it was just a knee jerk reaction. Violence is never the answer

The scum must also be unbelievably thick. He is a police officer and had climbed the ranks a bit. Surely he knows about CCTV, bus cameras, how your phone is traced and how hire cars are traced. He left more evidence than your average criminal. The scourge on humanity must be dense to even think that he would have got away with it

It beggars belief, doesn’t it? But is he really that thick or did he realise he’d be caught but thought it was a price worth paying?

I’m glad he’ll never be free again and I hope his life is mentally torture.

RIP Sarah

@ElleStartingOver

Scotland Yard have now changed their policy and will no longer allow individual plain clothed officers to arrest women. The met will also allow women under arrest to call the control room to check the identity of the officer making the arrest.

It’s a start I suppose.

What a stain on the Met that they have to think of changing the rules. I was a Police officer for 30 years (not in the Met) and they have always had a reputation for being bent, corrupt, dishonest etc. Clearly this isn’t every officer, there will be some professional and dedicated ones, but they are going to struggle to move beyond this.