Sarah Everard: What is the law on resisting arrest in UK?

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Wayne Couzens, the serving Metropolitan Police officer found guilty of kidnapping, raping and murdering 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard, was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison on Thursday.

Speaking at the Old Bailey, Lord Justice Fulford, presiding, described the circumstances of the killing as “grotesque” and said the defendant’s crime was so severe it merited the whole-life term with no question of parole.

Couzens had planned the attack in advance but chose his victim at random, using his police-issue warrant card and handcuffs to carry out a false arrest on Everard after stopping her as she walked home alone from a friend’s house in Clapham Common, South London, at 9.30pm on the night of 3 March 2021, accusing her of having breached Covid-19 lockdown rules.

Having abducted Everard, Couzens drove her to Dover in Kent, sexually assaulted her, strangled her with his police belt and subsequently disposed of her body.

The horrific case caused an outcry, with calls for the resignation of Met commissioner Dame Cressida Dick over the police’s failure to root out Couzens and heavy-handed intervention at a candle-lit vigil for Everard in Clapham last spring.

Many women took to social media to express their sorrow for the victim, fury at feeling unable to walk the streets of Britain alone without credible protection and dismay and distrust towards the police.

Many were also haunted by the thought that they too might have been unable to tell whether or not an arrest was bogus had they been confronted with similar circumstances to those faced by Everard.

The UK government’s website has the following to say about the rights of the individual faced with a police arrest, as per the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE): “To arrest you, the police need reasonable grounds to suspect you’re involved in a crime for which your arrest is necessary. The police have powers to arrest you anywhere and at any time, including on the street, at home or at work.”

In order for an arrest to be lawful under Section 24 of PACE, a constable must have detained someone who has either committed an offence, is in the act of committing an offence or is about to commit an offence.

They may also arrest anyone they have reasonable grounds for suspecting of these acts. In order for this latter condition to be met, the officer must honestly believe in the person’s guilt and for that suspicion to be plausible based on the facts known at the time.

In accordance with Section 28 of PACE, an arresting officer must identify themselves to the suspect as a policeman or policewoman, tell them that they are being arrested, tell them what crime they are being accused of, explain why it has become necessary to arrest them and explain that they are not free to leave.

Should the suspect try to escape the situation, the police are entitled to use “reasonable force” to restrain them, for instance by holding them down to prevent them running away. Handcuffs might also be deployed and the police have the right to search them.

Unlike in the US, it is not actually illegal to resist arrest in the UK, although individuals can be prosecuted under Section 38 of the Offences against the Person Act 1861 if they engage in “assault with intent to resist arrest”, meaning behaving violently towards the officer during a bid to flee.

It is also an offence under Section 89 of the Police Act 1996 to intervene or wilfully obstruct an officer from carrying out their duty in the arrest of someone else.

Anyone subsequently found to have been arrested unlawfully - should the terms of PACE’s Section 24 outlining the circumstances for an arrest not be met or Section 28’s protocol requirements not be complied with - is entitled to take action against the police and could potentially have grounds to sue.

What makes the Sarah Everard case so particularly disturbing is that Wayne Couzens was a real officer, albeit off-duty at the time he carried out his attack and certainly not engaged “in the execution of his duty”, so was able to show his victim an authentic police warrant card and handcuffs, excusing his lack of uniform or squad car by saying he was a plainclothesman working undercover.

Although he was deployed as a parliamentary and diplomatic protection officer stationed at the US embassy at the time of the murder, Couzens had spent that January working on Covid patrols so also had sufficient knowledge of the lockdown regulations then in force.

That enabled him to convince his victim the accusation he was making against her was legitimate, making it extremely difficult for her to detect that anything was amiss.

Kit Malthouse, the Home Office’s crime and policing minister, has since said it is “perfectly reasonable” for concerned women to call 999 to identify officers they believe they have reason to doubt while the Met Police has advised them to “shout out to a passer-by, run into a house or wave a bus down” if they feel afraid or suspicious.