Sarah Everard murderer Wayne Couzens investigated over ‘sexual assault on drag queen’
Sarah Everard’s murderer, Met police officer Wayne Couzens. (Met Police)
Sarah Everard’s rapist and murderer Wayne Couzens is under a new investigation for allegedly sexually assaulting a drag queen in a bar.
The unnamed performer said she encountered Couzens in a pub near the police officer’s home in Deal, Kent, in 2018 – three years before he murdered Sarah Everard.
Couzens, 48, is accused of molesting the drag queen as they stood at the bar before propositioning them for sex in a dark alleyway nearby.
Recalling the incident to The Mirror, they said: “I was wearing a turquoise and silver leotard with beads showing off my legs, and I was wearing the same colour feather boa. I was getting served and this man said to me, ‘Are you having a good night?’ I went ‘Yes, thank you,’ and I thought no more about it.
“Then he went round to my groin and I went, ‘Oi, stop that. My partner’s over there.’ He went, ‘Do you know who I am?’ and I went, ‘Do you know who I f**king am?’
“I told him my drag stage name and he said, ‘I’m a policeman.’ I said to him, ‘I don’t give a f**k who you are, you do not touch me.’
“After I calmed down a little bit, he went, ‘Do you want to go round the back where it’s dark and give me a blowjob and we can do things?’ I said to him, ‘I’ve told you, p**s off.’”
The drag queen said she went over to tell their partner what had happened and asked him to accompany them to the toilet, only to find Couzens had vanished.
“Can you imagine if I went down that alley?” they said. “My partner has said to me, ‘You could have been stabbed in the alley and left somewhere else.'”
The drag queen says they didn’t tell any of their friends about the close call as they were “embarrassed”, but the incident affected them deeply, and whenever they go out now they stay close to their partner. “I won’t wander. I don’t go to the bar on my own now,” theu said.
The alleged victim didn’t go to police until they saw publicity about Couzens’ jail term, fearing that their claims would not be taken seriously.
“I recognised Couzens right away when I saw him on TV,” they said. “I said to my partner: ‘That’s him.’ I feel so awful at what happened to Sarah.”
Kent Police confirmed to The Independent it has been made aware of the alleged incident, which is said to have taken place between April and October 2018, and that the matter has since been referred to the Metropolitan Police.
The police watchdog is already looking into three allegations against the 48-year-old to determine whether detectives missed chances to arrest or fire him before Sarah’s death.
In a statement, the Met Police said: “We can confirm the Met has received a crime report from Kent Police in relation to an allegation of sexual assault at a pub in Deal in summer 2018. A spokesperson for the force said detectives are now assessing the information and enquiries are ongoing.”
