The latest Wayne Couzens recruited by the Metropolitan police immediately after Wayne Couzens was sentenced
And why the Met cannot be trusted to fix the Met
Trigger warning for Rape and Sexual Assault and Child Abuse and Police Abuse of Power for Sexual Gain
Editors Note: This was written prior to the Angiolini report was released but explains why I do not believe the Met is capable of implementing the recommendations made by Lady Angiolini as accurate and necessary as they and Baroness Casey’s recommendations are.
To the child that Officer Cliff Mitchell raped before he was recruited by the Metropolitan Police a month after Wayne Couzens was sentenced a full life sentence for the abduction rape and murder of Sarah Everard. You are brave and deserved to be believed and protected.
Officer Cliff Mitchell raped a little girl and that little girl was not silent. That child reported her rapist to the police. They did not caution her rapist or launch a comprehensive investigation and filed it under “No Further Action.” Imagine being told that as a child.
We now know that they didn’t fully investigate because when they did, he was charged and convicted of those same attacks on her.
Fast forward to 2021. Sarah Everard is murdered by Wayne Couzens, a serving police officer in a crime that shocks the world.
In the days and weeks prior to that despite Cressida Dick being on telly daily saying Sarah’s murder was the lowest point for the Met and that women had to trust that we could trust her and the police. Cliff Mitchell was recruited the month after Wayne Couzens was sentenced to a whole life order.
Can you imagine that child seeing interview after interview of police women saying that he was not one of them, did not represent them and that in the future women would be protected and believed. That we could trust the Met, that Couzens was just a ‘rong un.
Was Mitchell’s child victim naive to think the police would protect her? That the Met Police would believe a child under 13 telling them she had been raped and pursue the man that had done that to her. She bravely told them what he was doing so that they would hold him accountable. And they just didn’t. They failed her miserably. And he kept raping her. And applied to the Metropolitan Police.
Surely in the month after Wayne Couzens showed the dark underbelly of the Met, surely they would not allow a man accused of raping a child become an actual police officer. Surely that could never happen. But it did.
But now. Now he WAS the police. He told her because he was the police he knew how to make women’s bodies disappear. He told her no one would believe her. And he was right. No one did. They validated his power. They validated his campaign of terror over her, his later mocking her with his warrant card. He continued to terrorise and rape her. And the Met let that happen.
But she kept asking for help. This time to the courts and finally, finally someone believed her. A judge granted her a non molestation order. Finally she would be protected.
But no. The system doesn’t even automatically tell the police that a police man has had a protection order granted against them. Protection orders are only granted if you can convince a judge that the man you are getting a protection order against intends to harm or kill you. A judge believed that little girl, and once again, she hoped that the system will work. And she pursued safety through the correct channels, and once again she was failed. It is obscene that the protection order did not matter. It is up to the police officer who is a danger to women and children to tell his superiors that he has been found to be a danger to women and children, usually his own wife and children. When are we going to stop giving officers the benefit of the doubt. Officer who are abusing power and the system and not all of a sudden going to develop a conscience and tell on themselves. Why would they? What is in it for them?
I wrote about that loophole for the second anniversary of Sarah’s death a year ago in the ipaper Why didn’t they fix it? They could have done this with an admin function. We are not even worth fixing administrative oversights that are brought to their attention. And that child suffered because of further inaction and bureaucracy.
On Tuesday on Sky News, I said there would be another Couzens or Carrick as nothing had actually been done to prevent another officer abusing their power in the worst possible way. I had no idea that I would be proved right twenty four hours later.
How about some accountability Commissioner Rowley for the little girl who watched her rapist get given a warrant card. That child that continued to try and protect herself and use the courts to do so, only for the Met to not protect her from her rapist who said he could make women’s corpses disappear, because that is what he learned from being a Metropolitan police officer.
To that little girl. I am sorry they failed you. I am sorry it took a member of the public catching him while he tortured and raped another victim for them to believe you. I will never have an ounce of the strength you showed to tell the courts what he did to you and to stop him hurting other little girls and women. And I am sorry that the organisation meant to protect and serve children like you were complicit in the crimes against you. Thank you for stopping him. Thank you for protecting other little girls and thank you for doing what the police refused to do. You saved lives. You saved other little girls suffering.
You are a hero. You are my hero.