An independent report on whether red flags were missed about killer police officer Wayne Couzens is due to be published on Thursday.

The former armed Metropolitan police officer will never be released from prison after he abducted, raped and murdered marketing executive Sarah Everard in March 2021.

A report on the first part of a Home Office-commissioned inquiry into his policing career by Dame Elish Angiolini is set to be published on Thursday.

The 51-year-old used his status as a police officer to trick Miss Everard into thinking he could arrest her for breaking lockdown rules in place at the time.

After the harrowing killing, it emerged there had been concerns about Couzens’ behaviour while he was a police officer, with reports he was nicknamed “the rapist”.

He joined Kent Police as a special constable in 2002, became an officer with the Civil Nuclear constabulary in 2011 and then moved to the Met in 2018.

Couzens indecently exposed himself three times before the murder, including twice at a drive-through fast food restaurant in Kent in the days before the killing.

He was not caught despite driving his own car and using his own credit card at the time.

Then-Metropolitan Police constable Samantha Lee was sacked and barred from being a police officer after it was found she had not properly investigated the incidents.

Couzens was also later revealed to have been part of a WhatsApp group with fellow officers that shared disturbing racist, homophobic and misogynist remarks.