Mercy Muroki: A whole life order for Wayne Couzens was a victory for justice itself

Wayne Couzens, the former Met officer who kidnapped, raped, and murdered Sarah Everard has officially sought an appeal against the whole life term he was handed last month.

Couzens used the guise of Covid powers to falsely arrest Miss Everard as she walked home from a friend’s house in March.

The details that were revealed in the recent sentencing hearing, of how Couzens callously planned and carried out his attack are nothing short of harrowing.

And let's be very clear, Wayne Couzens is the very worst of humanity.

And he is also a man with absolutely no remorse for what he has done.

He showed no remorse after his crimes, and he shows no remorse now.

Hours after he had burned Sarah’s body, he called an escort for sex. This, by the way, was on the same day he took his wife and two children on a ‘day out’ to the same area he had tried to get rid Sarah’s body.

This shows you how utterly depraved he is - on every level.

Couzens is also man who has avoided taking full responsibility for his actions at every opportunity. And he is doing it again.

Following his arrest, he tried to spin a web of lies around the police, making up a story about how he had handed Sarah over to an East European gang who he was indebted to.

How he had no idea what happened to her, and that his actions were to keep his own family safe.

But, sentencing him to a whole life term at the Old Bailey, Lord Justice Fulford likened his crime to that of a terrorist, saying it was, quote, “of equal seriousness as a murder carried out for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial, or ideological cause”.

A whole life order for Couzens was not just a victory for Sarah’s family, it was a victory for justice itself.

He joins around 60 prisoners in the country who will die in jail – for whom life really does mean life.

He joins the likes of notorious serial killer Levi Bellfied, who murdered 13 year-old Milly Dowler, as well as two other young women, in 2002.

Michael Adebolajo, responsible for the daylight slaying of British soldier Lee Rigby in the name of Islam in 2013.

And Mark Bridger, who kidnapped 5-year-old April Jones before sexually abusing her, murdering her and disposing of her body in 2012.

The irony is – by appealing his whole life order, Couzens proves exactly why he deserves ones. Exactly why it is right that judges have whole life orders at their disposal.

His appeal of his sentence suggests one thing – that he does not think he deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison for what he did.

It suggests that he has little remorse, no understanding of how serious his crime is, and virtually no desire for full accountability.

In other words – criminals like Wayne Couzens are exactly why some people deserve to die in jail.

And I, along with every sane person in Britain, hope he does.