Sarah Everard’s mother 'tormented by the horror of her final hours' as damning report highlights risk to women and girls

Sue Everard has described how she struggles to recall happy memories of her daughter because she “can’t get past the horror of her last hours.

“I am still tormented by the thought of what she endured,” she said.

Her comments coincide with a major report that found more still needs to be done to prevent violence against women and girls.

In a foreword to the report, she wrote: “After four years the shock of Sarah’s death has diminished but we are left with an overwhelming sense of loss and of what might have been.

“I go through a turmoil of emotions – sadness, rage, panic, guilt and numbness. They used to come all in one day but as time goes by they are more widely spaced and to some extent time blunts the edges.



“I am not yet at the point when happy memories of Sarah come to the fore. When I think of her I can’t get past the horror of her last hours. I am still tormented by the thought of what she endured.

"Without Sarah, there is no unbridled joy. And grief is unpredictable – it sits there quietly only to rear up suddenly and pierce our hearts.

"They say that the last stage of grief is acceptance. I am not sure what that means. I am accustomed to Sarah no longer being with us, but I rage against it.”

The report found that Government attempts to protect women are being ‘powered by goodwill, rather than proper funding’, and warned ‘women will continue to be harmed’.

The Angiolini Inquiry, set up to investigate the killing of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer, has said there is a ‘troubling lack of momentum and ambition’ to prevent further attacks.

That’s despite ministers aiming to halve violence against women within a decade.

The second report to be released by Lady Elish Angiolini explores how far existing measures go to stop sexually motivated crimes against women in public spaces.

Read more: Sarah Everard killer Wayne Couzens rushed to hospital for 'non-emergency procedure'

But it warned basic questions couldn’t be answered, including how often offences happen.

Gender equality campaigner Patsy Stevenson told LBC News: “I don't have hope for this. What we see time and time again as gender equality campaigners is constant lip service and people who don't take the safety of women and girls as a priority.

“Not once are we mentioning that the actual issue we have here is men. It's male violence against women and girls.

“You know, nine times out of ten, this is men that are perpetrating these acts. So I think when we look at prevention, we really need to have those conversations about what prevention looks like.

"And what it does look like is educating young boys from a young age on what misogyny is and what safety looks like for women and girls."

The inquiry’s own survey found around half of women had felt unsafe because of someone else’s actions or behaviour in the last three years, increasing to three quarters among women aged 18 to 24.

In a statement, Lady Elish Angiolini said: “Too many perpetrators are slipping through the cracks in an overworked system; police, prison and probation resources are overstretched and under-funded.

“This is despite violence against women and girls being described as a ‘national threat’ in 2023.

“In reality, I have found the response overall lacks what is afforded to other high-priority crimes where funding and preventative activity is the norm.

“Until this disparity is addressed, violence against women and girls cannot credibly be called a national priority.”

In 2023, the government told police chiefs to tackle violence against women with the same urgency they do terrorism.

A national programme was set up to change the way crimes like rape are investigated, putting more focus on identifying and targeting perpetrators.

But Lady Angiolini has warned that recommendations from her first report, published almost two years ago, have not been fully implemented.

They include making sure people with convictions or cautions for sexual offences are barred from joining the police, which according to the report, the Home Office says will not be addressed until next year.

A quarter of police forces were also found to have not yet put in place a specialist policy for investigating non-contact sexual offences like indecent exposure.

The inquiry’s first report listed a litany of failures in identifying and removing the Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens from duty before he abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard in March 2021.

They included occasions when he had been reported to police for exposing himself to staff at a restaurant, days before he used his warrant card to lure the 33-year-old into his car.

The report also said there was nothing to stop another Wayne Couzens from operating in plain sight.

The inquiry has now called for a ‘fundamental shift in focus’ as it made 13 new recommendations around how to prevent sexually motivated crimes against women in public.

Lady Angiolini pushed for a public health approach to educate children and young people on consent and healthy relationships and to design public places in a way that minimises the risk of women being targeted.

But she added that better street lighting and providing information on safe routes home, while important, do not go far enough.

Lady Angiolini said: “It has been over four and half years since the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard, and 22 months since the publication of my Part 1 Report.

“During this time, countless other women have been victimised by perpetrators in public spaces.

“Looking ahead to the festive period, when many women will be travelling, and meeting friends and family, I continue to be worried about their safety in public spaces.

“There is no better time to act than now. I want leaders to, quite simply, get a move on. There are lives at stake.”

Sarah Everard’s family say the report shows ‘how much work there is to do in preventing sexually motivated crimes against women in public spaces’ as they said the extra recommendations “will benefit us all”.

Sue, Jeremy, Katie and James Everard said: “Sarah is always in our thoughts, of course, and we feel the inquiry continues to honour her memory. So too does it speak for all the women who have been the victim of sexually motivated crimes in a public space and all those at risk.

“We stand with them in recognising the urgent need for positive change and in expectation of a better future.”

The inquiry continues to investigate aspects of police culture which are enabling misogynistic and predatory behaviours and has also been asked to look at the circumstances surrounding serial rapist David Carrick’s offending.

The former PC, who served in the same team as Wayne Couzens in the Metropolitan Police, was handed 36 life sentences in 2023 after being unmasked as a serial rapist.

Earlier this month he was handed another life sentence for molesting a 12-year-old girl and raping a former partner.