Former police officer Wayne Couzens loses bid to reduce whole-life prison sentence for Sarah Everard murder

Wayne Couzens, the former police officer who murdered Sarah Everard, today lost a Court of Appeal bid to reduce his whole-life prison sentence.

In May, senior judges heard challenges or appeals to the prison sentences of five convicted killers, including Couzens's whole-life term. But on Friday the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Burnett, and four other judges refused to lower his sentence.

The former officer, 48, was last year handed a whole-life term for the rape and murder of 33-year-old Ms Everard, the first time the sentence had been imposed for a single murder of an adult not committed in the course of a terror attack.

Appealing against the whole-life term, Couzens's lawyers argued he deserved “decades in jail”, but said a whole-life term was excessive. However, in a summary read out in court, Lord Burnett said that the sentencing judge was entitled to impose a whole life order due to the facts of the case.

The former Metropolitan Police firearms officer is understood to reside at HMP Frankland in County Durham, which is home to some of the country's most dangerous criminals.

Couzens falsely arrested Sarah, 33, as she walked home from a friend's house in Clapham, South London in March, 2021, claiming she was breaching lockdown rules. He later pleaded guilty to kidnap, rape and murder.

He is one of over 60 criminals serving whole-life sentences - including Manchester police officer killer Dale Cregan and Lee Rigby's murderer Michael Adebolajo.

They are reserved for the most serious crimes such as serial killings and politically motivated murders.

Sentencing him, Lord Justice Fulford said by misusing his police role to kidnap, rape and murder Sarah, his crime was "of equal seriousness as a murder carried out for the purpose