Three of Wayne Couzens’s Met Police colleagues joked about raping a female colleague and shooting children in a WhatsApp chat, a court has heard.
PC Jonathon Cobban, PC William Neville and former officer Joel Borders are on trial accused of sharing grossly offensive messages on the instant messaging service between April 2019 and August 2019.
They were all serving Met Police officers at the time and some of their "grossly racist, sexist, misogynistic" messages were sent while they were on duty, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard on Thursday.
Detectives investigating the case discovered the material on a WhatsApp group stored on one of Couzens’ old phones after he was arrested for the rape and murder of Sarah Everard in March 2021.
The three defendants had all worked with each other at the Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC), where Mr Cobban had even volunteered as the “race and diversity custodian” for the firearms unit, before moving to Scotland Yard.
Transcript of messages read to court
A transcript of the WhatsApp messages sent by the officers was read at the start of the two-day trial on Thursday,
In August 2019, Mr Cobban and Mr Borders joked about raping one of the women working in their unit, who Edward Brown QC, prosecuting referred to using the pseudonym Kate.
Mr Cobban said: “Least you’ll have Kate. She’ll look after you lol.”
Mr Borders said: "She will use me as an example. Lead me on then get me locked up when I rape and beat her! Sneaky bitch."
Earlier that month, Mr Neville and Mr Cobban exchanged messages joking about rape, referring to them as “struggle snuggles”.
Mr Neville said his experience of “struggle snuggles” had “come in useful” when he had to pin “a 15 year old girl going mental to the floor”, Mr Brown told the court.
Other messages, in June 2019, saw officers in the WhatsApp group joke about performing sex acts on domestic violence victims.
Mr Cobban said domestic violence victims “love it”, adding: “That’s why they are repeat victims more often than not.”
Messages will undermine efforts to encourage reporting of sexual violence
The prosecutor told the court the messages about rape “would have the effect of wholly undermining the efforts made by the police to encourage the reporting of sexual violence, and to recruitment of female officers to our police forces, and the public confidence in such efforts to know that trainee officers were speaking about their colleagues in this way.”
Mr Borders and Mr Cobban also exchanged messages in April 2019 when they joked about shooting and deploying their tasers on the vulnerable, the court heard.
Mr Borders said: "I can’t wait to get on guns so I can shoot some c— in the face!"
Mr Cobban replied: "Me too. I want to taser a cat and a dog to see which reacts better. I think the cat will get more pissed off and the dog will s— it. I wanna test this theory. Same with children. Zap zap you little f——."
Mr Borders responded: "And a couple of downys?"
The court was also shown a string of messages between Mr Borders and Mr Cobban in which they used “truly shocking” racist language, the prosecutor said.
Mr Cobban is alleged to have described the west London borough of Hounslow as a “f—— Somali s— hole” in June 2019, while Mr Borders described the nearby town of Feltham as “worse”, saying: “I felt like a spot on a domino!”
Mr Cobban replied that walking through Hounslow was “like walking along a dulux colour code”.
A homophobic comment was also made by Mr Cobban in the WhatsApp group in August 2019, when he referred to a member of the public suffering a mental health crisis as an “attention seeking self harming f–”, the court heard.
When interviewed by police, Mr Cobban did not deny making the comments, describing them variously as "very bad taste" and "unacceptable" in a pre-prepared statement.
Regarding his message about the borough of Hounslow reminding him of a "Dulux colour code", however, he wrote: “This comment was in relation to the vibrancy of the area. It was a surprise to see all of different shops and signs in a variety of colours and language.
"I was very new to the area and not an operational police officer in the met.”
The court heard Mr Borders told police some of the messages were "very dark humour" and insisted he was "always professional on the job".
Mr Neville said the comments over which he has been charged were "poorly judged" but "based on controversial humour", adding: "I do not mean these comments literally."
The prosecutor said the defendants were part of a group with the title "Bottle and Stoppers / Atkin’s puppets" along with four other officers, including others who had transferred from the CNC to the Met at around the same time, in February 2019.
He added there was "no evidence" that any of the defendants or other members of the groups called out or challenged the offensive messages.
He continued: "The prosecution case is that at the time, each of the defendants was a serving police officer, training to and employed to protect and support the citizens of a very diverse city.
"Each of the messages was plainly grossly offensive by any objective standard.”
Mr Cobban and Mr Borders are charged with five counts of sending grossly offensive messages, while Mr Neville is charged with two counts. They deny the offences.
The trial continues.
