POLICE missed three key clues about monster cop Wayne Couzens that could have seen him booted from the Met before he killed Sarah Everard.
Couzens, who admitted the marketing executive’s murder on Friday, was once reported to bosses for slapping a female cop’s bum — but it appears no action was taken.
He became the talk of his nick for only stopping female motorists — and would take their personal details so he could watch their homes, returning to one at least three times, it is claimed.
Vile Couzens, 48, also parked his patrol car by schools so he could leer at mums and sixth formers.
A source told The Sun on Sunday: “It is frightening when you think about what happened to poor Sarah. If someone had been doing their job properly three years ago then none of this would have happened.”
Our revelations follow claims yesterday that Met chiefs missed other shocking incidents, which have heaped more pressure on Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick.
The bottom slap incident is said to have happened at Bromley police station in South London in 2018 — just weeks after Couzens joined the force.
A source said: “Everyone at the station said he was a right oddball and there were complaints about him but nothing was done.
“There was a female officer at Bromley and he had just booked someone in the custody suite and he walked past and slapped her bottom.
“It was right out of the blue and he tried to make a joke out of it.
“She wasn’t having it and complained to superiors but nothing appeared to have been done.
“The incident would have been logged. You would have thought alarm bells would ring when he applied for a firearms post and these things would have flagged up.
“But they obviously didn’t log it or maybe someone wasn’t doing their job properly.”
While at Bromley, Couzens would often talk about sex and showed an unhealthy obsession with women, hanging around outside schools in his patrol car.
The source added: “He would go back to the same school and talked as if he had been there before, looking at the same mums who he called ‘hot’.”
The whole thing was weird. It was the talk of the station. He had breached several regulations and was quite brazen about it
Shortly after he started at Bromley, the source claimed, he stopped a female motorist and said her tax and insurance were out of date before making a note of her address — so he could later pull up outside her house and watch her.
The source added: “The whole thing was weird. It was the talk of the station. He had breached several regulations and was quite brazen about it.
“In fact, I heard he went back to her house three times in his squad car, just sitting outside.
“It just shouldn’t have been allowed to happen. Why on earth were the bosses allowing him to do that given his erratic behaviour?
“He would also send Valentine’s Day cards to female officers and civilian staff working at Bromley despite being married. And he was always talking about sex.
“It used to be the talk of the station that he would only pull over women and never any blokes.
“It got to the point that people didn’t want to go on patrol with him. He would use any excuse to pull over women and ask for their details which is frightening.
“The alarm bells should have been ringing with his behaviour at Bromley.
“He would talk about sex and porn all the time despite being married and with kids.
“His behaviour was the talk of the station and everyone was stunned when it came out he had been moved to firearms.”
Couzens was dubbed “The Rapist” while at the Civil Nuclear Constabulary, which he joined in 2011. It is claimed he made female colleagues there feel uncomfortable. In June 2015, a male motorist said he had seen Couzens driving naked from the waist down in Dover, Kent.
Three years later, he was able to get a job with London’s Met, serving as a probationer at Bromley.
In 2020, with the force keen to hire gun cops in response to terror attacks, Couzens was recruited to the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Unit and given specialist firearms training.
Couzens also allegedly twice flashed in a McDonald’s in Swanley, Kent, on February 28 this year.
Three days later, on March 3, he kidnapped Sarah, 33, from a street in Clapham, South London. Her body was found a week later in woods near Ashford, Kent — metres from land owned by Couzens. She had been raped and strangled.
Couzens is due to be sentenced for murder in September.
Dame Cressida is under intense pressure to investigate how he was able to continue serving as an officer despite suspicions being raised about his behaviour.
After he pleaded guilty on Friday, the Independent Office for Police Conduct revealed the 2015 allegation as it was confirmed he was suspected of two other indecent exposures that were not properly probed by the Met Police in the days before the murder.
In total, the IOPC is looking at 12 gross misconduct or misconduct allegations on serving police officers relating to the case.
When we put our new revelations to the Met yesterday, a spokesman said: “We are not able to respond to queries such as this while proceedings are ongoing.”
The Independent Office for Police Conduct said: “We have not received any referrals from the Metropolitan Police in relation to these allegations.”
Met chief ‘to decide in weekson future’
TOP cop Dame Cressida Dick will decide on whether to quit within weeks, The Sun on Sunday can reveal.
The Metropolitan Police boss is expected to reveal her future job plans next month after facing major criticism over the Sarah Everard case.
Ms Dick, below, will inform Home Secretary Priti Patel and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan about whether she will ask for another full term, an extension or quit her £270,000 a year position.
Scotland Yard is under huge pressure after Wayne Couzens admitted Sarah’s abduction, rape and murder.
Ms Dick’s five-year term is up next April. But finding a successor will take months, following a rigorous recruitment process. A source said: “When she makes her decision, we’ll act very quickly on what happens next. The process can’t be done overnight.”
Ms Dick said it was impossible to “begin to imagine” what Sarah’s family went through, adding that she is “sorry”.
By Ryan Sabey
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