Met Police officers guilty of sending grossly offensive messages

Above: Met Police officers; library image

Officers were part of Whatsapp group chat with Sarah Everard’s killer

One serving and one former Metropolitan Police officer have both been found guilty of sharing grossly offensive messages with Wayne Couzens, Sarah Everard’s killer.

Met constables William Neville, Jonathon Cobban and former PC Joel Borders were members of a group chat called “Bottle and Stoppers” along with Couzens.

Neville was cleared of sending grossly offensive messages but his two colleagues were convicted on Wednesday, following a trial at Westminster Magistrates’ Court in July.

Couzens is serving a whole-life sentence for the kidnap, rape, and murder of 33-year-old marketing executive Ms Everard in March 2021, when he was working in the Met.

On 25 April 2019, Borders joked about raping a female colleague, who he referred to as a “sneaky bitch”, language which the judge said was “misogynistic and aggressive in its nature and is a clear example of victim blaming”.

Image above: Jonathan Cobban leaving court; image from Evening Standard Youtube video

Officers described Hounslow as “Somali s***hole”

Borders and Cobban swapped what they claimed was “banter” about tasering children and people with disabilities, and referred to LB Hounslow as a “Somali s***hole” in comments made in the group in 2019.

In an exchange on 5 April that year, Borders wrote: “I can’t wait to get on guns so I can shoot some c*** in the face!”

Cobban responded:

“Me too. I want to taser a cat and a dog to see which reacts better. I think the cat will get more p***** off and the dog will s***. I wanna test this theory. Same with children. Zap zap you little f******.”