Former Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens has been sentenced to a whole-life prison term for the murder of Sarah Everard, joining a list of criminals who will never be released from jail. Couzens used his position as a police officer to falsely arrest the 33-year-old marketing executive as she walked home in Clapham in March, before driving her 80 miles to Kent where he raped and strangled her with his police-issue belt.
Whole-life tariffs are reserved for the most heinous offenders. Among those serving such sentences is Robert Maudsley, dubbed 'Hannibal the Cannibal', who has spent over 40 years in solitary confinement for four murders, three of which occurred in prison. He became Britain's longest-serving prisoner after Ian Brady's death in 2017.
Other notable cases include Mark Golding, convicted of six contract killings including a 10-year-old boy; Sidney Hutchinson, who murdered a bride's father, mother, and brother at a wedding reception before raping her sister; and Jeremy Bamber, who shot dead his adoptive parents, sister, and twin nephews. David Bieber, a former police officer, murdered a 14-year-old boy after abduction and sexual assault, while John Duffy attacked numerous women and raped and murdered at least three.
Anthony Arkwright, at 21 the youngest to receive a whole-life tariff, killed three people in a two-day spree in 1989. Christopher Robinson murdered two girlfriends, and John Green, released after a 1971 murder, killed again in 1989. Rose West, one of only two women serving whole-life sentences, was convicted of murdering 10 women and girls in Gloucester.
