Sarah Everard: Wayne Couzens’ wife ‘noticed nothing wrong’ before he kidnapped and murdered stranger

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The wife of the police officer who murdered Sarah Everard has said she saw no signs he was “acting strangely” before he carried out his crimes.

Wayne Couzens, 48, was sentenced on Thursday to a full-lift prison term for the kidnap, rape and murder of 33-year-old Sarah Everard, who went missing in March while walking home from a friend’s flat in South London.

But the former Metropolitan Police officer’s wife of 15 years, Elena Couzens, has said she is “as puzzled as everyone else” as to what led her husband to kill a complete stranger.

“If I had any idea what was going on in Wayne’s head, then none of this would’ve happened but I didn’t know anything”, Ms Couzens, 38, told MailOnline.

“He didn’t appear to be acting strangely. I didn’t notice anything was wrong. I’m working full time, most of the time I’m dropping the children off at school and picking them up, I have a really busy lifestyle.

“I can’t comprehend it because he never once previously showed any glimpse of violence, he was never that way. I’m just as puzzled as everyone else.

“I saw nothing wrong. He had a beautiful family, a good house… what else did he need? I’m constantly asking myself ‘where I did miss the signs?’ How on earth could this have happened?”

Detectives say Couzens has still refused to reveal why he murdered Ms Everard.

Ms Couzens added: “The only thing I can think of is manic depression. I know he suffered from depression, but it was always such a subtle thing, you couldn’t always tell what it was.

“He’d be up and down. Sometimes he’d feel really happy and energised and he’d start doing things around the house. But I cannot explain why he did this.”

However, adjourning the sentence, Lord Justice Fulford made reference to the psychiatric report on the defendant which, by his plea, did not amount to a defence of diminished responsibility.

Officers had arrested Couzens after linking a white Vauxhall Astra hire car captured on several CCTV cameras to Ms Everard’s abduction and discovering it was rented in his name.

In a police interview, he concocted an elaborate story and claimed to be having financial problems.

He said he had got into trouble with a gang of Eastern Europeans who threatened him and his family. A gang demanded he deliver “another girl” after underpaying a prostitute a few weeks before, he said.

He claimed that he had kidnapped Ms Everard, drove out of London and handed her over to three Eastern European men in a van in a layby in Kent, still alive and uninjured.

Meanwhile, police found out that Couzens and his wife had bought a small patch of woodland in 2019, in Ashford. Ms Everard’s body was later found around 100 metres outside the property boundary.

Ms Couzens added she had contacted the family of Ms Everard after her husband’s arrest.

“I had a conversation with the officers asking them to pass on my condolences. I am sorry that this happened, what happened to Sarah should not happen to any woman but her family are grieving,” she said. “The feelings I’m going through, they are going through much worse. It is horrendous.”