Talk:Murder of Sarah Everard

Not sure if Evarard was stopped on grounds of covid-19 regulations

The article says "Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens told Everard that he was arresting her for having breached COVID-19 regulations". I was trying to check that this was true myself and so found myself looking at this page and looking at sentencing remarks. https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Wayne-Couzens-Sentencing-Remarks.pdf.

The conclusion from the judge was "It is most likely that he suggested to Sarah Everard that she had breached the restrictions on movement that were being enforced during that stage of the pandemic." whereas this article says

Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens told Everard that he was arresting her for having breached COVID-19 regulations

I think this article as is the source it is citing (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-58739421).

I think we should change the wording by adding "it is likely that..." to the beginning of that sentence and using the sentencing remarks as the citation for the claim latter in the article removing the BBC source. Talpedia (talk) 19:17, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

I have written to the BBC asking if they can correct their article. Talpedia (talk) 19:29, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

For context, I was writing outside of wikipedia and wanted to use the stronger claim (should it have been true). Talpedia (talk) 19:29, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

I support this suggestion. Sweet6970 (talk) 16:39, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Mmmmm, what is engaged here is WP:OR, that is going back to primary documents (sentencing remarks) rather than using WP:RS's conclusions. A number of scenarios are possible here, including that the BBC may have got it "wrong" to the extent that they thought that what the judge says Couzens probably did is not materially different from what Couzens actually did - ie he used the authority of his police ID and some police procedural 'con' to persuade her to get into the car without much fuss - 'fuss' which could have alerted others and possibly saved her life. It is equally possible that the judge "got it wrong' or was being overly pedantic in distinguishing claims that were not examined in court, but which formed part of the prosecutorial narrative, from those examined and proven, or specifically accepted by the defence. It is very possible that the "covid regs ruse" admission came from Couzens himself via the prosecution, or that external evidence implied that this was the case, but the claim was neither specifically challenged nor accepted by Couzens' defence. Often, when a case is proven - the prosecutorial version of events becomes the 'establiahed version' in news media - although common sense obviously indicates that the fact that the main thrust of the verdict (that the accused DID commit the crime), does not necessarily mean that every aspect of the prosecutorial narrative was individually proven. Good media will usually qualify what is simply part of the prosecutorial narrative from what is specifically proven, but here the BBC may have found the distinction immaterial, or may have known that the "covid regs ruse" came from Couzens himself, or other evidence, and had not been challenged by defence. Possibly the difference is between "true by default" - because not challenged and "true because specifically proven" or accepted by defence.

I've more often been on "the other side" of such arguments ie keen to distinguish - sometimes lurid - prosecutorial narrative from what is proven or accepted. Technically the changes you want to make are WP:OR, but the fact that they don't materially affect the article (Couzens, abducted, raped and killed Everard, to a greater or lesser degree he used his authority and/or knowledge of police procedures to achieve this - whether it was the 'covid regs ruse' or some other means hardly matters), make me neutral about inclusion. For purely stylistic reasons (including that 'likely' is less often used in UK English in the way that it is used here), I may slightly change your text, but if another editor challenges it as WP:OR, I'm afraid they will be correct.Pincrete (talk) 09:29, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

I have changed the text back. ‘Likely’ is what is in the source (sentencing remarks) and ‘it is believed’ is too positive for what the source says. In this instance, where the primary source is a judge’s remarks, (not the prosecutor’s remarks) we should go with the primary source. Sweet6970 (talk) 11:20, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't really think this is WP:OR. It's a very straightforward summary of a source. WP:PRIMARY might apply (point 3 about evaluative statements is interesting). Depending on your trust in the judiciary, the sentencing remarks might be considered a WP:SECONDARY evaluation of the facts of the case. Thinking about whether a source is reliable is surely not WP:OR. Is even "this source disagrees with other WP:RS and the sentencing remarks" WP:OR?

It's noticeable that other newspaper articles don't make this claim - so perhaps we delete the claim on the grounds of balance or replace it with "In his sentencing remark Judge X said". Are we actually going to trust a single sentence in a BBC article over the sentencing remarks to make a stronger claim that a sentencing judge and other reliable sources? If it was multiple scholarly historic works that described their reasoning, maybe. Talpedia (talk) 12:54, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm afraid it is OR, because you are concluding that the BBC (who presumably had access to ALL the facts), got it wrong, but that you have got it right (without knowing why the judge introduced that caveat ) as a result of your reading this one document. However the OR doesn't bother me very much, since the detail is largely immaterial.

I don't object to the "in his remarks" construction, but this would be very cumbersome in the 'narrative' of the lead. If other sources have other ways to refer to how Couzens affected the 'kidnap', we should use those sources. Omiting this would not be a good option IMO.

On purely stylistic grounds "It is most likely that he suggested to Sarah Everard that she had breached the restrictions on movement that were being enforced during that stage of the pandemic" is what the judge said and is standard UK usage, but saying "It is likely that X occurred" is not the same as saying "likely X occurred", which I believe may be fairly normal in US usage, but not UK, where it would be very informal use. We would ordinarily say 'probably' in the construction you want to use. Pincrete (talk) 14:23, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, I'd say that OR exists as text in articles, not as a thought process in your head. At least the OR that wikipedia bans.

I agree that there is value in simple reasoning regarding sourcing decisions and I would far prefer to follow a scholarly book or article if it existed.

When I looked at a few other sources they did not mention that Couzens made use of covid regulations - but I should perhaps make a full review of some sources. We could fall back on WP:DUE and say that since most sources don't say that Couzens used covid regulation with the exception of the BBC we should not mention this.

I don't have strong opinions about the wording surrounding "likely" other than I don't think the consensus sources supports a strong assertion that Couzens used covid legislation. My mind would be changed if we found other news articles making the stronger claim. Talpedia (talk) 14:56, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

On reflection, and reassessing the sources, it seems undisputed that he used his police ID to 'gain authority' while kidnapping her - I wonder whether using that in the lead is less problematic than the particular 'covid ruse'. The expanded form in the body could use the "in his remarks the judge said" construction. I think the reader inevitably asks "how did he get her to comply during the kidnap?", and unfortunately, "why do we say that is it only "probable" that he used covid rules as a cover?" Pincrete (talk) 19:29, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

I'm happy with that :+1: Talpedia (talk) 19:35, 22 November 2022 (UTC)

Chronology and content of the Sentencing and imprisonment section

I have just removed a duplicate statement about the indecent exposure offences. This was presumably added because the last para of the section is/was about the convictions of Couzens’ colleagues, which occurred in November 2022. The section is now not in chronological order. And I’m not convinced that the material about Cobban and Borders should be in this section. Any comments? Sweet6970 (talk) 20:44, 13 February 2023 (UTC)

Technically it is probably off-topic, but as they were in the same messaging group, I can see the sense is a brief mention. The case highlighted a lot of racist and misogynistic messaging between Met officers.Pincrete (talk) 10:24, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

...they were in the same messaging group…. If the article was about Couzens, then this inf might be included, although it is of marginal relevance. But the article is supposed to be about the murder of Sarah Everard. I consider that the inf should be deleted, as irrelevant to the subject of the article. Sweet6970 (talk) 13:33, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Trial of protesters

"In June 2022 the Met announced that it would be prosecuting six people who had attended the vigil for breaking COVID-19 laws. On 10 June, three of them were fined £220 each and each ordered to pay £134 in costs when tried in absentia in a behind-closed-doors trial. The hearings for the other three were due to take place later that month. In August 2022, the Crown Prosecution Service discontinued the prosecutions."

Were these convictions overturned? S C Cheese (talk) 11:08, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

It looks like what happened is that the demonstrators were convicted under a routine procedure without a trial, they then challenged the convictions, and the CPS did not defend the challenges, so that the convictions fell away. But this is not actually stated in this way in the sources. Sweet6970 (talk) 11:38, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

She challenged the conviction on the grounds that she had no opportunity to plead not guilty, and the case was then dropped by the CPS and her “crime” removed from the record. She called the apology “empowering”, but said victims of abuse needed more support that could not be provided by the police.

^From the guardian. Not sure what this means saying that you challenge a conviction and then the CPS drop the case feels like a bit of a non-sequitor - kind of like "there was a guilty verdict at the trialtrial and then the victim chose not to press charges.".

All this SJP and FPN is rather odd because "constitutional rulings" in the UK require a trial before any ruling fine, so it gets formulated as "the accused gets to disagree at any time". My suspicion is that rather than the conviction being "challenged" it was administratively "undone" as though she had declined SJP and then it got handed to the CPS who decided not to continue - but obviously this is all conjecture Talpedia 14:25, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Two links recent and of the time. AFAI can see the convictions were never officially overturned, but whether the fines were ever paid, I don't know, but doubt. The convictions were due to powers granted to police during COVID lockdown to ban public gatherings that were seen as risking public health. The heavy-handed implementation of that ban in this instance, and subsequent convictions, became a PR disaster for the Met and CPS. The convictions are technically in a not dis-similar category to a speeding fine anyway. Pincrete (talk) 14:34, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Additional link, Talpedia is probably correct. At least two of the convicted opposed the convictions and the CPS decided that carrying on to a trial was discontinued "as it was not in the public interest". Thus the conviction was rendered void rather than being overturned. Pincrete (talk) 15:03, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Yeah - I'm suspicious that there might be way to "undo" SJP rulings due to administrative error without having to bother a court of appeal, because I suspect the courts of appeal might start getting annoyed with a whole bunch of their time getting taken up by adminstrative failures. Talpedia 15:10, 14 September 2023 (UTC)

Date of birth

The Daily Mail says here: "Sarah Rosemary Everard was born on June 14, 1987, at Redhill Hospital in Surrey..." But we cant use it, of course. Just sayin'. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:59, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

The Independent, The Times and The Daily Telegraph sources

The article has 12 sources from The Independent. Of these, 10 are marked as "paid subscription required". As far as I know, however, only a personal registration is required. Perhaps access differs between geographical location? Conversely, there are 8 sources from The Times unmarked, where paid subscription is required. Similarly for the 7 sources from The Daily Telegraph. Why is this? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 10:28, 11 March 2024 (UTC)