Met must answer ‘serious questions’ over Sarah Everard case – Patel

Commissioner Cressida Dick (left) with Home Secretary Priti Patel during a June visit to the new Counter-Terrorism Operations Centre (CTOC) in West Brompton, London (Stefan Rousseau/PA)

“Serious questions” need to be answered by the Metropolitan Police, the UK Home Secretary has said, as she backed Cressida Dick in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder.

The Met commissioner faced more calls to step down amid demands for urgent action to restore the confidence of women in the police after Wayne Couzens was handed a whole life sentence for the killing.

Speaking at the Home Office, Priti Patel said: “There are questions, serious questions that need to be answered by the Metropolitan Police … from the very day that Sarah went missing, I have been, clearly, in contact with the Metropolitan Police and putting forward some questions around the conduct of the potential suspect at the time and all the requirements and checks that should have been put in place.”

Wayne Couzens (right) and Sarah Everard beside a vehicle outside Poynders Court on Poynders Road, Clapham, south London (Metropolitan Police/PA)

When asked if Ms Dick should resign, she said: “I will continue to work with the Metropolitan Police and the commissioner to hold them to account as everybody would expect me to do, and I will continue to do that.”

Describing Couzens as a “monster” and the case as “sickening” and an “appalling tragedy”, Ms Patel said: “It is right that he has been given a whole-life tariff and with that he can never walk the streets of our country again.”