Wayne Couzens, a Metropolitan Police officer, has pleaded guilty to the murder of Sarah Everard.

       The 33-year-old marketing executive was reported missing by her boyfriend on 4 March when she did not come to work the day after visiting a friend’s house in Clapham, south London.

       Ms Everard’s body was found a week later in a woodland area in Ashford, Kent, around 50 miles from where she was last seen.

       Her family described her as a “shining example to us all” who “brought so much joy to our lives”.

       Couzens, 44, pleaded guilty to kidnapping and raping Ms Everard at the Old Bailey on 8 June, when he also accepted responsibility for her death.

       A month later, on 9 July, he pleaded guilty to her murder and could face the rest of his life behind bars when he is sentenced during a two-day hearing on 29 and 30 September.

       The court heard how Couzens hired a car and bought a roll of self-adhesive film advertised as a carpet protector in the days prior to the murder.

       The defendant, who was a serving police officer at the time, had continued to work despite a complaint of indecent exposure three days before Ms Everard’s murder.

       Couzens was accused of exposing himself in front of a woman at a fast food restaurant in south London on 28 February. The incident was recorded on CCTV and reported to the Met Police by restaurant staff that night.

       At the time, Couzens had been working as a diplomatic protection officer in a Westminster-based unit in the Met which protects high-profile individuals and buildings in London. He had been primarily guarding embassies, The Telegraph reported.

       He had been working a 12-hour shift at his base in West Brompton, west London, the day before Ms Everard’s disappearance.

       The Met Police have said he was not on duty at the time of Ms Everard’s disappearance.

       On 5 March, the police officer, who was due to be off until 8 March, reported to work that he was suffering with stress. He emailed his supervisor the following day, saying that he no longer wanted to carry a firearm.

       Couzens, who is married and has two children, was arrested at his home in Deal, Kent on 9 March, six days after Ms Everard went missing, and was charged on 12 March.

       Couzens, who was born in Dover in 1973, had also served in the in the 3rd battalion of the Army Reserves for two years from 2002, according to a report inThe Times.

       The defendant began working for the police later in life. Couzens worked as a mechanic in his family’s garage in Dover for more than two decades, beginning as an apprentice in 1990 until 2011. His older brother, David Couzens, is also a police officer who joined the force in 1999, according to Kent Online.

       He was working as a traffic officer with Kent Police in Folkestone by 2008, The Daily Mail reported, before joining the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and worked at the Dungeness Nuclear Power station in Kent.

       He transferred to the Met Police in 2018, working in the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command.