Who was Sarah Everard and what happened?

On the evening of 3 March 2021, Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, disappeared in South London, England while she was walking from a friend’s house in Clapham, South London, to her home in nearby Brixton. The abduction of a woman from a busy London street at night-she was later found dead-has triggered an upsurge of anger from women about the threats and intimidation they face as they go about their daily lives.

Sarah Everard was born in Surrey in 1987. She grew up in York. At the time of her death, she was working as a marketing executive for a digital media agency. At around 9 pm on 3 March 2021, Everard left the house of her friend near Clapham Junction. She spoke to her boyfriend on her mobile phone on the way and agreed to meet him the next day. At around 21:28, she was seen on a doorbell camera footage on Pounders Road and four minutes later on the dashcam of a police car. After she did not meet her boyfriend on 4 March, he contacted the police that she was missing.

The police sought public help in tracing her whereabouts. The investigation began and on 9 March, Kent police made two arrests- Wayne Couzens, a 48-year-old Metropolitan Police constable and firearms officer, at his home in Deal, on suspicion of kidnapping and murder and a woman in her 30s on suspicion of assisting an offender. Wayne Couzens joined the Met in 2018 and early 2020, was moved to the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command- the armed unit responsible for guarding London’s diplomatic buildings and embassies. On 10 March 2021, police searching Hoad's Wood near Ashford, Kent, found human remains in a large builder’s bag. They also searched a garage linked to a suspect. On 12 March, Everard’s body was identified through dental records and the postmortem claimed that she died from compression of the neck. On June 8, Couzens pleaded guilty to kidnap and rape, and admitted responsibility for Everard’s death.

The case has now prompted the UK government to lay out a plan to improve safety, including more money for better lighting and more security cameras, and a pilot program to send undercover police to clubs and other nightspots. On the sidelines, Sarah Everard's family is grieving for a daughter and sister. In a statement released shortly after her body was found, they remembered her as “bright and beautiful”.

The disappearance and death of Sarah Everard had sparked a national outcry in the United Kingdom over violence against women. Women inundated social media with posts describing their own experiences of walking the streets where they had been catcalled, followed and harassed. “This Sarah Everard situation is scaring me because she spoke to her boyfriend on the phone, wore bright clothing, walking on the main road, was outside before midnight, and still she got killed. Do you know how scary it is as a woman to know that?”, read one message which was retweeted nearly 25,000 times. Several hundred people gathered at the Clapham Common to mourn her death. The vigil ended in violence as the protesters and police clashed and officers handcuffed and led women away from the event. The police’s handling of the event gathered criticism from across the political spectrum and led to calls for the first female to lead the Met, Commissioner Cressida Dick, to step down.

The murder of Sarah is deeply personal for people who knew her but it has also shocked a nation and reignited intense debate about women’s safety and misogyny. Great emphasis was put on the fact that while not every man has harassed or violated a woman in public, there isn’t a woman who hasn’t experienced abuse of some sort. Sarah Everard’s family is now planning a funeral for her that should never have been.

Sarah should still be here. “SARAH COULD HAVE BEEN ME.”

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