'Officer Naughty': Met Police officer who quit force to set up OnlyFans 'didn't investigate Wayne Couzens for flashing'
9 May 2023, 13:19 | Updated: 29 February 2024, 07:48
A former Metropolitan Police officer who quit the force after setting up an OnlyFans pornography account faces a disciplinary hearing for allegedly failing to report Wayne Couzens for flashing.
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Former police constable Samantha Lee, who worked in the southernmost boroughs of London, didn't "undertake the correct investigative enquiries" after Wayne Couzens, who went onto kill Sarah Everard, exposed himself at McDonald's in February 2021.
Ms Lee's gross misconduct hearing starts on May 15 and will last seven days. If the claim were proved it would be enough to fire her, if she had not already quit.
"In March 2021 former PC Lee failed to undertake the correct investigative enquiries into an allegation of indecent exposure (concerning Wayne Couzens as the named suspect) and that she subsequently provided a misleading account of her actions when questioned about them.
Met misconduct investigators claim that by allegedly doing this she breached her duties and responsibilities as an officer, as well as her requirement to maintain honesty and integrity.
Ms Lee calls herself a "good girl gone bad" on her Instagram profile, which features several provocative and semi-nude photos of her.
The Instagram account links to her personal, paid-for OnlyFans porn site, entitled Officer Naughty. The account has 97 posts and the biography "INKED British Cop EDITION".
Met bosses later discovered her OnlyFans account and suspended her from duties after allegedly bringing the force into disrepute.
Ms Lee then quit the force.
Couzens exposed himself twice - on February 14 and 27 2021 - in front of horrified McDonald's workers at the Swanley service station in Kent.
The incidents were reported to the Met on February 28 2021, but he was not arrested and three days later he kidnapped, raped and murdered Ms Everard.
Some of the women involved in the incidents slammed police during their victim statements, with one woman telling the Old Bailey: "If he had been held accountable when we had reported the crime, we could have saved Sarah."
On her view of police, another victim added: "I do not like to tar everyone with the same brush but it has been difficult not to do so after knowing what he did for a living and knowing I could have come across him in uniform and not known what he was capable of."
Police said they were "sorry" that he was not caught before he raped and murdered Ms Everard.
CCTV showed Couzens placing his order for cheeseburgers at the drive-thru before queuing to collect it.Moments later a female member of staff saw him with his "trousers pulled down to his knees" at the serving window.
CCTV shows Wayne Couzens at McDonald's drive-thru in Swanley days before rape and murder of Sarah Everard
A senior judge said: "The female staff were shaken, upset and angry."
Addressing police failures, they added: "The fact that no police came to find him or his black car, to question him about these incidents, can only have served to confirm and strengthen, in the defendant's mind, a dangerous belief in his invincibility, in his power sexually to dominate and abuse women without being stopped."
