Sarah Everard was kidnapped by Wayne Couzens in a “fake Covid arrest” with handcuffs before he went on to rape and murder her, a court has heard.

       Couzens, 48, was a serving PC with the Metropolitan Police when he snatched Ms Everard as she walked home in Clapham, south London, on the evening of 3 March this year.

       At the start of his two-day sentencing at the Old Bailey in London, the court heard how Ms Everard was the victim of “deception, kidnap, rape, strangulation, fire”.

       A former boyfriend described 33-year-old marketing executive Ms Everard as “extremely intelligent, savvy and streetwise” and “not a gullible person”. He said she would not have got into a vehicle with a stranger unless by “force”.

       Couzens was said to be wearing his police belt with handcuffs and a rectangular black pouch, similar to a pepper spray holder, when he kidnapped Ms Everard.

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       Prosecutor Tom Little QC told the court Couzens snatched Ms Everard in a “false arrest”, by “handcuffing her and showing his warrant card”.

       The disgraced police officer had been involved in Covid patrols earlier in the year, the court heard, and would therefore have been aware of the regulations and the language used to enforce them.

       Mr Little said the fact Ms Everard had been to a friend’s house for dinner at the height of the lockdown on the night she was kidnapped may have made her more likely to submit to accusations she had breached the rules in some way.

       The court heard a couple travelling in a car on the South Circular witnessed the kidnapping.

       The passenger in the car described seeing a woman with one arm behind her back as a man in dark clothing began to place a handcuff on her other arm.

       CCTV footage played in court showed two people - Couzens and Ms Everard - standing on a pavement behind a stationary white car which had its hazard lights flashing.

       The court heard Ms Everard’s kidnapping took less than five minutes.

       Former Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens who kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard in south London

       (Metropolitan Police/PA)

       She was handcuffed at about 9.34pm, detained in Couzens’ hire car by 9.37pm and they were on their way to Kent a minute later, Mr Little said.

       The court was shown CCTV footage of the defendant’s hire vehicle in Dover shortly after 11.30pm as he transferred Ms Everard to his own car.

       Couzens then drove to a remote rural area of Dover he knew well, where he parked up and raped Ms Everard.

       He later bought petrol which he used to burn her body, clothing and possessions in a refrigerator in a woodland after murdering her, the court heard.

       Mr Little said Couzens threw his victim’s Apple iPhone into a flow relief channel in Sandwich within hours of her death.

       A fragment of an EE sim card was also found in his own car, suggesting he had taken not only her phone but also the sim while kidnapping her.

       A week after she disappeared, Ms Everard’s body was found in a woodland stream in Ashford, Kent –just metres from land owned by Couzens.

       Mr Little said the defendant had moved her body in “green bags that he had purchased specifically for that task to a pond deeper into the woods but which was only about 130 metres from his plot”.

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