Wayne Couzens: PCs in WhatsApp group with Sarah Everard killer found guilty

Joel Borders (left) and Jonathon Cobban have been convicted of sharing offensive messages in a WhatsApp group

A serving Met police constable and an ex-officer have been found guilty of sharing "grossly racist, sexist, and misogynistic" messages with Sarah Everard's killer.

Jonathon Cobban, 35, and former PC Joel Borders, 45, shared WhatsApp messages about women and disabled people with Wayne Couzens.

Judge Sarah Turnock described some of the comments as "abhorrent".

Couzens, 49, murdered Ms Everard last year while serving as a Met officer.

Cobban and Borders were members of a WhatsApp group called "Bottle and Stoppers", along with Couzens.

In comments on April 5 2019, Cobban and Borders swapped messages about tasering children, animals and disabled people.

'Misogynistic and aggressive'

Judge Turnock said: "I can honestly say that I consider it to be sickening to think of a police officer joking about using firearms in this way."

On April 25 2019, Borders joked about raping a female colleague using language which the judge said was "misogynistic and aggressive in its nature".

Cobban, from Didcot, Oxfordshire and Borders, from Preston, Lancashire, will be sentenced on 2 November.

William Neville, from Weybridge in Surrey, 34, was cleared of sending grossly offensive messages following a trial at Westminster Magistrates' Court in July.

Neville had been accused of "acting out a rape fantasy" following comments he made about restraining a teenage girl, which he referred to as a "struggle snuggle".

But Judge Turnock found the term referred to a technique learnt during police training, and said the message did not in itself imply the action had been sexually motivated.

'Inexcusable and disturbing'

The offences took place two years before Couzens kidnapped Sarah Everard in a fake arrest in March 2021, before raping and murdering the 33-year-old marketing executive.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) previously said the charges arose from an investigation into the phone records of Couzens.

IOPC regional director Sal Naseem said: "The messages sent by these police officers were inexcusable and particularly disturbing given the profession they represent.

"Social media cannot be a hiding place for these types of views.

"Behaviour of this nature seriously undermines public confidence in policing."

Messages the men shared had been previously described in court by Prosecutor Edward Brown QC as being "grossly racist, sexist, misogynistic".

Follow BBC South East on Facebook, on Twitter, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [e-mail].