Ex-Met Police officer says she has received hate messages over handling of Wayne Couzens flashing cases | UK News
A former Metropolitan Police officer said she has received hundreds of hate messages since being banned from being a police officer for Wayne Couzens’ handling of two flashing incidents.
Samantha Lee failed to make “exact investigations” into the offenses in which the Couzens exposed female workers at a McDonalds restaurant in Kent in late February 2021, a panel of judges said. detection law.
The two incidents took place just days before he was kidnapped, raped and murdered Sarah Everard.
Her failure to properly investigate and lying about her actions were considered serious misconduct.resulting in her being barred from joining any future police force.
Ms. Lee, 29, said she felt “totally blamed” for Everard’s death and that she had received messages from people saying she should have been the one kidnapped and murdered.
She told BBC Newsnight: “I think I’m being seen as a terrible, terrible person who committed a very heinous crime. And I’m being treated as if I was just as guilty as Couzens.
“But there’s literally nothing I can do to change the outcome.
“I don’t want any sympathy. All I want is for people to understand that there’s nothing I can do.
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“It’s a case of ‘let’s go in from the bottom’ instead of going higher at the top.
“The only person who should be blamed for that terrible, terrible, terrible crime is Wayne Couzens.”
The court heard she was sent to McDonalds in Swanley on 3 March 2021, interviewing manager Sam Taylor just hours before the Couzens kidnapped Ms Everard from Clapham in south-west London.
Ms. Lee said she believes the restaurant’s CCTV was automatically removed, so there will be no crime scene of Couzens, but Mr. Taylor said he showed her the video and told her it could be saved to a USB stick.
He also said he told her the registration plate on Couzens’ car can be seen in CCTV footage of the second incident.
Ms. Lee said after the ruling that she had been made a “scapegoat”, adding: “I’m a young female PC and I’m the only one facing any disciplinary action in connection with this. .
“There is only one person responsible for everything that happened and that is Wayne Couzens.
“I never lied.”
Couzens are sentenced in March of this year to 19 months in prison via three offenses of indecent contact – two incidents at McDonalds and one where he had contact with a cyclist in Kent in November 2020.
When convicted, he served a life sentence for what he did to Miss Everard.
