I’m glad Wayne Couzens got life for Sarah Everard’s murder – my mum’s killer got just 18 years and can still be let out
THE daughter of a woman who was raped and murdered in her own home has welcomed the whole life sentence of Sarah Everard’s killer - but says the family won’t find peace until he’s dead.
Wayne Couzens has become one of a handful of killers who will die in jail, after he used his position as a police officer to abduct and murder the 33-year-old in March.
Tracey Millington-Jones - whose mum Wendy Speakes, 51, was stabbed 11 times in her Wakefield home in 1994 - has successfully campaigned to keep killer Christopher Farrow behind bars, after he was handed a 18 year sentence.
She says Couzens’ life without parole sentence shows victims and their families are beginning to get the justice they deserve.
“My heart goes out to the Everard family,” she says. “I can’t imagine how her poor mother feels seeing her daughter on CCTV getting in the car with that policeman.
“Life without parole, when it's premeditated first degree murder, is what all killers should get in this country.
“Finally, it’s starting to get noticed that victims and the victim’s family matters, and this sentence reflects that.”
Although Tracey has nothing but praise for the detectives that hunted down Farrow, then 39, in 2000, she is horrified at the warning signs that Wayne Couzens’ police colleagues missed.
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The firearms officer was allegedly dubbed “the rapist” by fellow officers because of a love of violent porn and had faced allegations of indecent exposure.
“I read there were mistakes the police made in the Sarah Everard case and that just adds insult to injury for the grieving family,” she says. “What they’re going through is horrific.”
Tracey, whose story is told in this Monday's Murdertown, on Crime+Investigation, was horrified when the parole board moved Farrow to an open prison, in 2018, with a view to releasing him on parole.
She successfully got the decision overturned but the mum-of-one, who lives in Essex, has to renew the fight every two years when his case goes before the parole board - and is convinced he will kill again if released.
“If you were to ask victim’s families if they shoud bring back the death penalty, by lethal injection, my answer would be yes,” she says.
“Then my life, however long I've got left, will not be taken up with fighting to keep him in prison. That's the injustice here. There's no closure for me.
“When you hear of murderers who have been shot or killed themselves, people often say that he’s cheated justice but, I always think it’s better that way because they've got closure.
“I won’t get that until I get the call to tell me he’s dead.”
