BBC making ‘respectful’ drama about murder of Sarah Everard

The BBC is releasing a drama series about the murder of Sarah Everard by Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens.

In 2021, Everard, 33, was abducted, raped and killed by Couzens while she walked home from a friend’s house in Clapham, south London.

Following the arrest of Wayne Couzens, it emerged in court that he had kidnapped her under the guise of an arrest for breaking Covid lockdown rules – and it emerged that Couzens had passed several rounds of vetting despite three alleged incidents of indecent exposure that were not fully investigated.

The BBC assured viewers that the drama will be handled “sensitively and respectfully” and are in contact with Everard’s family.

According to a synopsis, it will “examine the circumstances that allowed a sexual offender to become, and remain, a Metropolitan Police officer” and will also “consider the impact these failings have had on public confidence in policing, particularly in light of the epidemic of violence against women and girls”.

Bafta-winning writer Jeff Pope is scripting the show and will, according to Director of BBC Drama Lindsay Salt, treat the subject “with the utmost care”. Casting is yet to be announced.

Pope’s previous credits include true-crime drama shows Little Boy Blue, Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes and A Confession. He received an Oscar nomination in 2014 for writing Philomena alongside Steve Coogan, and wrote The Reckoning, a drama about the Jimmy Savile scandal, in 2024.

Salt added that the series will “help to ensure that the issues that led to Sarah Everard’s murder remain in the public consciousness for years to come, whilst continuing to hold the police to account”.

The series will look at “what lessons can be learnt” from Everard’s murder.

“Wayne Couzens should never have been a police officer, but opportunities to deny him that privilege were missed,” Pope said.

“That he was still a serving officer on the night of 3 March 2021, after committing numerous sexual offences over a long period of time, was a tragedy waiting to happen, and the key question asked by this drama.”

In December 2025, an inquiry launched after Everard’s death urged forces to drastically tighten police vetting after finding recommendations on recruitment had not been followed up by police forces.

The commissioner of the Met Police, Sir Mark Rowley, said “no organisation of 40,000 people can be perfect” – but insisted work has taken place to remove problematic employees from the force since Everard’s death.

Rowley said some 1,500 people had been “rooted out” of the force since 2022, including many because of inappropriate behaviour toward women.