UK UK - Sarah Everard, 33, London - Clapham Common area, 3 March 2021 *Arrests* #6

[Commoner]

It's the way you would drive back from Nine Elms (Battersea) to get to Kent. It's about two miles away though. So if his shift finished at 8pm, it suggests some premeditation that he was around there still at 9.30, the drive is about 10 mins

But surely he would have needed to go back to the station/armoury to de-kit?

Then get to wherever he parked, and then drive to the area of Poynders Court. I'm not sure how long all that would take.

Assuming the armoury is, as previous posters have said, either at Charing Cross or Palace of Westminster, then logical route would be through Southwark and Lewisham to M20.

So IMO that bit of A205 was pre-recce'd as suitable for a snatch, and he might have hung round there before (might fit with arrest for flashing?)

My speculation is that he parked up behind the flats somewhere, and waited outside the car, looking for suitable opportunity, lone female, gap in traffic, and used some sort of pretext to get her to step off the pavement. Then once there he could overpower, get her to car, and drive away up Rodenhurst Road (possibly even Elms Crescent, but there's a lot more ground to cover on foot for that, so more chance of being seen/interrupted) and leave the area on a completely different road to the A205

My theory is that Sarah was mugged for her phone (accounts for it becoming invisible, as mugger would do that to prevent remote disabling) and WC was 'good samaritan' off duty copper (with warrant card) who got her to come and sit on the wall or something just off pavement (because she's shaken up) whilst he (pretends to) call for help. It all unfolds from there. JMO

 

[stormyseas]

The other thing I find fascinating is his psyche. The Sun reported that he only joined the Met in 2018, transferring straight into DPG (his current unit). And had only ever worked in Deal, and then Dungeness in Kent until 2018. It also says he didn't like London and wanted to quit the police and take up hospitality back home in Kent. So can't have been perpetrating acts in London before 2018? And can't have left any DNA/traces previously, or it would have been picked up on his security checks in 2018.

His job at DPG involves him spending all his shift guarding diplomatic buildings or security at events. It's not one where he is out and about on the streets of London or gets any real downtime tbh. He then has a 4 HOUR commute to and from home. So can't be drinking after work or socialising much. And then a family to look after as his wife works full time in Dover - so between them they must have to juggle school runs and child care?

If he had a history of such acts in Deal or Dungeness, these are small enough towns that in 30+ years, someone would have noticed or reported it? So it makes me wonder if all this started only once in London?

Met cop 'may have used warrant card to entice Sarah Everard into car'

BBM I thinks it’s entirely possible the evening of the attack/abduction was his first offence. I think he had probably fantasised about attacking young women for a long time, but he began his contact offending that night with an indecent exposure that then escalated to sexual assault and likely murder. It would explain why he has not been caught before and the sloppy nature of his offending that evening. It would likely have been precipitated by a major life stressor (eg. relationship breakdown, job loss, etc.). IMO

 

[Newthoughts]

She hasn't bent the rules. She's perfectly in her right to visit a friend. I do the same thing right now. And if I were stopped I would say I was in my bubble.

Thats where the issue of our confusing rules comes in. My reading is that unless I met outside or the person is in my bubble I wouldn't be able to meet them. Which just illustrates how confused we all are and how jumpy we've all become around police - especially since they've started issuing hefty fines. Not something you'd want if paying London rents

But one thing everyone knows is that exercise in your local area is allowed at any time. So assuming he hadn't been stalking her, surely her most obvious response would be going for a walk.

So I can kind of understand her responding to someone with a warrant card asking why she was out. We trust the police and we know they're checking for lockdown breaches. They always checking cars in our local beauty spots to see if they're 'local'.

What is harder to understand is her willingly getting into a car with someone outside her bubble who could be infected even with a mask.

 

[Blanche]

Sarah Everard police swooped on 'murder suspect' Met officer after CCTV breakthrough from bus camera | Daily Mail Online

I see that they also think a theory is that he stopped her regarding lockdown rules and that he used his warrent card to get her in his car. I note they also now have the photos of him with his wife and her face is no longer blacked out. Also no link found between SE and him.

 

[Gibbo214]

That is to say that someone with psychological deficits in the areas of impulse control, theory of mind, empathy and fear of risk / harm to others may explode in a rage & lash out when rebuffed. Or physically restrain a distressed victim using force that is lethal. Or in the act of self defence, when a victim uses force, accidentally cause a death via their responsive actions. In the mind of someone at that time, there may not be an intent to kill, but they kill nevertheless ie accidental versus their intent. I would highly recommend some of the interviews available on YouTube where you can watch the questioning of similar perpetrators.

For clarity: I am not suggesting that this is a legal or moral defence for ones actions. I am speaking to the recorded, studied and reasonably well understood phenomena of a perpetrators *potential* mindset when escalating from one form of sexual crime to sexual crime + murder.

To my mind, none of the things that you have list are accidents. If you apply violence to someone and it results in their death while you are trying to commit another crime, it is not an accident.

 

[Audiohoney]

No police tape or activity there as of yesterday afternoon (although there was a met police unmarked car there yesterday - i saw the log book on the dashboard as I walked past).

I am fairly sure there is zero chance WC rents a flat in Poynders Court (never say never!!). He has a family in Deal and they live in a modest family home down there. The rent on a flat in Poynders Court is likely up to 3x what the family would be paying on a mortgage in Deal. Even a studio flat in Poynders Court would be 2X the value of the Deal property.

He works in the met and his wife works too but down in Kent ie not London weighted salaries. They don’t have a London “Pied a Terre”, and even if they did, it wouldn’t be in Clapham paying £1400 a month.

I could believe the specific location had something to do with the case when there was a chance she knew her attacker. But this just looks completely random, and the specific location was incidental.

Many thanks for the update on activity. And yes, thanks to the points you put forward I’m inclined to agree. That would be a significant rental fee - a shared flat is of course a possibility - though I think we’d see much more police activity there if that were the case.

Just strange to me to pick such a relatively busy road to carry out a kidnap / abduction / attack. So many risks. Although perhaps that was part of the thrill.

 

[Blanche]

Thats where the issue of our confusing rules comes in. My reading is that unless I met outside or the person is in my bubble I wouldn't be able to meet them. Which just illustrates how confused we all are and how jumpy we've all become around police - especially since they've started issuing hefty fines. Not something you'd want if paying London rents

But one thing everyone knows is that exercise in your local area is allowed at any time. So assuming he hadn't been stalking her, surely her most obvious response would be going for a walk.

So I can kind of understand her responding to someone with a warrant card asking why she was out. We trust the police and we know they're checking for lockdown breaches. They always checking cars in our local beauty spots to see if they're 'local'.

What is harder to understand is her willingly getting into a car with someone outside her bubble who could be infected even with a mask.

that's correct we cannot just go meet a friend unless they are in our bubble, but regardless i think he could have used that as an excuse to approach her because he could legitimately ask why she was out i guess

 

[Mersault]

Thats where the issue of our confusing rules comes in. My reading is that unless I met outside or the person is in my bubble I wouldn't be able to meet them. Which just illustrates how confused we all are and how jumpy we've all become around police - especially since they've started issuing hefty fines. Not something you'd want if paying London rents

But one thing everyone knows is that exercise in your local area is allowed at any time. So assuming he hadn't been stalking her, surely her most obvious response would be going for a walk.

So I can kind of understand her responding to someone with a warrant card asking why she was out. We trust the police and we know they're checking for lockdown breaches. They always checking cars in our local beauty spots to see if they're 'local'.

What is harder to understand is her willingly getting into a car with someone outside her bubble who could be infected even with a mask.

If she did get willingly into the car, Covid explains why she’d have sat in the back (with child-locks and potentially blacked-out windows). I don’t think she’d have sat quietly and unrestrained for 90 minutes though, so don’t think this is what happened.

 

[4NSIC]

I'm new to this forum and joined because I have been rattled by this case ever since the news broke.
Like make people, it has hit home (both literally and metaphorically for me).
What a tragic loss of life of an innocent young women who had everything to look forward to. I feel desperately sad for her family and loved ones, who must be going through hell right now.
I just can't get over how perverse, twisted and sick WC must be to do this. I just can't understand the motivation, particularly as father.
I'm particularly disturbed that she might have suffered or felt terrified for a long time, as it's a long drive from London to Kent. I dread to think the ordeal she has gone through. I hope it happened instantly and quickly. RIP



This is really informative, thank you. The one thing that has bothering me, and I think a lot of people, is that is it common for killers/psychopaths to have children? When I think of past cases and notorious killers, I don't remember any of them having a family. Somehow, it makes it more disturbing the fact he has a young daughter.

I understand why you ask this. WC has not been convicted of this crime so I can only describe him as the “suspect” when making this comment:

the *suspect* is *reported* to have met his wife online whilst she was in the Ukraine and he was in the UK. We do not know what the motivating factors were in this instance for a Ukrainian woman to marry a British man she potentially had never met. We do not know what motivating factors may have made WC engage in a marriage on that basis.

All I can say with certainty is that personality disorders, and mental health, are fluid and people change over time. Loneliness is not exclusive to those who are well. A desire for love and acceptance are universal. Contrary to popular belief, cluster B individuals are capable of love and often feel something for their own children that they don’t feel for others.

Ones disorder can worsen in severity if life gets harder, and it often does because the seeds of dysfunction cause problems that spiral as we age. Neurobiological, physical brain abnormalities are often detectable on MRI in these individuals. Everything degraded as we get older. Family man ten years ago? You can be a “monster” today! Lifelong problems with intimacy and empathy were probably evident before now though.

I am not making excuses for terrible acts but I feel the pathway to reducing sexual crimes should include compassionate, anonymised treatment offerings. A kind of amnesty if you will...so that people like WC can effectively admit themselves to treatment *before* offending & destroying the lives of victims and his own families.

This is partly why I’ve written here. Every story started somewhere. Awareness is key.

 

[tmar]

Hello. I'm a first-time poster too. Like many others here it seems, I'm a Londoner who has been deeply affected emotionally by this particularly haunting and disturbing crime against poor Sarah Everard.

Some random thoughts/observations -

In early media reports (6 days ago) it was suggested that Sarah walked part of her journey home with "another friend". An example link of this here :-

Desperate search to find woman, 33, who vanished on way home in south London

Was this ever discounted/proved wrong? My thought being, was the "friend" the alleged perp, WC? Did he somehow either know her (but this is unlikely as the family have said they didn't previously recognise his name) or he was hanging around Clapham Common and latched onto Sarah during her walk home. Did LE interview him early in the investigation, but he said he was a friend of Sarah and they initially had to take his statement at face value as he was a fellow LE officer? But then his statement didn't stand up under scrutiny?

Secondly, people are speculating on how WC may have coerced Sarah into his car. One thought springs to mind. As someone who has walked home many late evenings across London after a few drinks with friends or at a party, I know one thing for certain: I usually have to stop somewhere along the route for a discreet pee. Is it possible that after Sarah's phone conversation with her boyfriend, she needed to stop in the shadowy areas around Poynder's Court to discreetly squat down behind the bins or similar and pull down her leggings to relieve herself. Did WC happen to drive/walk by at this particular moment and happen upon her at a particularly vulnerable moment for her. A few months back I witnessed a very unfortunate drunk man peeing against a building on a public road just as a van-load of police offers pulled up to the kerb. I noted that they were giving him a very stern talking to and leading him towards their van to as I walked away. Could this have been the 'in' WC used to approach/lure her into his car.

Police were seen searching the drains near Poynder's Court - did they theorise that the perp had disposed of Sarah's phone down the drains here.

How did WC overpower Sarah. Is it possible that as an LE officer he had access to weapons like a taser.

The accusation of indecent exposure towards WC seems significant. It seems highly likely that this was a sexually-motivated crime. If WC was cruising Clapham in a hired car with false number plates looking for victims as previously suggested on this thread, then it's possible that his plan was to find a lone female victim to lure into his car with his warrant card on a pretense of having committed a petty crime such as public drunkeness, outraging public decency, or breaking lockdown rules, and then offer her a sleazy choice. 'it seems you're in an unfortunate situation here young lady, but there is a way out of it for you.' And then unzips his pants etc....It seems likely that this kind of sexual power trip would be a strong motivator for the perp. Some previous victims may even have gone along with this, but the fact that the incident has apparently had such a grim and violent ending suggests that Sarah put up one hell of a fight.

These are horrible things to speculate on, but they seem sadly plausible in our current society. If Sarah has met a violent ending as suspected, then god bless her soul, let her have justice, and may her family and friends have comfort, peace and justice too.

@TheLastBoyScout.
For a first post, you have given this a great deal of thought.
Welcome.
Hope to hear lots more from you.

 

[jk1874]

That would not be accidental and it is victim blaming to even suggest that she would be involved in that in a consensual way.

It would be if the intention was not there to kill.
I was just giving an example, I don't for one second think this was the case. Likely a predator and def non-consensual if at all IMO.

 

[Finders_Keepers]

First time poster here. I’m a clinical psychologist specialised in personality disorders and have a background in LE.

I think Sherlockhames has it broadly correct, according to what I’d expect to come out later.

A few points re other general discussions.

- “hands on” sex offenders tend to have a personality disorder, even if it is somewhat subtle
- psychopaths & those with other cluster B disorders are reasonably common in society
- they tend to have a lower than average IQ, possibly around the 90 mark
- premeditation and their -perception- of risk often shows hallmarks of low cunning rather than the glamourised, filmic, highly sophisticated psychopathic thinking style many imagine
- unsolved cases are predominantly due to loss of evidence over time rather than the skill of the perpetrators in covering the crime
- hire cars are not unusual in cases like this, the low cunning thinking style perceiving them less likely to be traced
- ANPR cams all over the UK lead LE to WC and he was subsequently subject to surveillance by plain clothes teams for days
- cordon at Poynders Court probably to some degree timed to give media smokescreen whilst arrest planned at WC’s home
- PaDP officers are almost always -not- trained in forensics, investigative policing techniques or related specialist functions
- PaDP are trained in tactics related to security and weapon handling, usually involving 5 week training sessions at a specialised residential facility in Kent
- This training is repeated every X months / years as are psychological screenings for ones suitability to be a firearms officer
- these screenings are not repeated often enough IMO as much can change between times and they are widely self report questionnaires which are known to be unrealiable
- one may expect that a sex offender would escalate from “hands off” ie flashing to “hands on” over time if he is subject to worsening mental health, fractures in personal relationships, death or illness in the family, a narcissistic injury such as humiliation at work or with his wife etc
- yes, it is possible that a first killing occurs at 48
- yes, it is statistically likely that Sarah got into his car voluntarily
- yes, it may have been an accidental killing as a result of a failed attempt at consensual sexual activity
- or a panic killing to reduce the chances of prosecution

EDIT to add: its highly unlikely that his Met issue taser or other weapon could be used in this attack as they are strictly booked in and out before & after shifts. However police CAN carry: baton, warrant ID, uniform, nylon cuffs, and other small items away from work easily / with permission.

There’s so much more to say but I have to go to work!

This is a great post and I agree with all of it but if the police had him as a suspect early on then I doubt they would wait to watch and observe unless they had some very clear evidence she was already dead.

Being he was living with a co-accused, albeit of a lesser crime, and his access to other uninhabited and remote properties locally, such as the old garage, there would be too much risk that she could be held alive at that point that would prevent them just observing him under surveillance.

I think they only identified him later in the investigation or already had evidence she was not alive. Otherwise with a possible window of her being alive and captive they would have had to move immediately.

 

[CuriousObserver1]

As they were checking the kerb outside the flats and marking it, and as it was a bus dashcam that caught him, IMO I think he may have been able to stop and get her into the car quickly - as others have said maybe under the guise that there has been an attack in the area/lockdown rules and his badge. Seems incredibly risky still, but maybe he thought he was invincible given his job and could cover his tracks...though the only thing he managed to do to was to disable/destroy/dispose of her phone so it did not ping any further along his route. I can't see it being a mugging without anyone else seeing it happen or her afterwards or him and her stood there as that would have all taken a good 5-10 minutes surely.

 

[LeopardLeotard]

Thanks for the updates Leopard. Did you see an ambulance at the property a few days before the arrest? Or three cars regularly there?

I have not noticed either of those, sorry x

 

[4NSIC]

To my mind, none of the things that you have list are accidents. If you apply violence to someone and it results in their death while you are trying to commit another crime, it is not an accident.

I understand and respect your view. I think we agree but I am describing *his* mindset, not ours. He may not have perceived his attempt to sexually interact with her as a crime.

 

[JST]

I saw it somewhere that the dashcam footage on Poynders of WC was from a bus, the number 50 isn't it along there. I know several sleuthers had the Tfl CCTV and were remarking on the bus route.

Yes, that's correct. This is a bus I've taken many times and it goes along Poynders Road / Poynders Court, so I strongly suspect that the footage was from the dashcam on the bus we could see on the CCTV footage. Route can be found here: 50 bus route

 

[MsMiniSleuth]

Sarah Everard police swooped on 'murder suspect' Met officer after CCTV breakthrough from bus camera | Daily Mail Online

Ah thanks, I mentioned this earlier because several had been talking about the bus route from the Tfl camera, but couldn't remember where I saw.

I wonder if that was why they didn't show the doorbell footage as it also showed vehicles they were investigating? If he was in a hired car - intentional, for what he had in mind? - that would take longer to go through than doing a simple reg check which would come back to him.

 

[Sarahjo]

I wonder whether this was the number 50 bus which lots of WS members screenshotted as passing by at the time on the traffic cams?

Brings back Moira Jones, she was abducted outside her house, marched across the road and into a park, a passing bus also captured this. Thank god for buses!

 

[LeopardLeotard]

So apart from dna etc are they searching for clothing etc?, what I find slightly odd is there is a large rubble sack obscured now by fence left hand side of front garden, that is untouched, the trailer in the front garden, is empty, this was not removed with cars either, there have been bags etc removed from house. The back garden is obscured from my view, however I have read posts regarding digging there

 

[MsMiniSleuth]

I suspect the police will be looking back on a lot of past unsolved sexual offences and even missing women. This can’t be a one off - false plates, disposal of the body - it doesn’t shout indecent exposure gone wrong and a panicked cover up to me.

False plates? Where was this?