BBC orders factual drama about the Sarah Everard murder from Jeff Pope’s prodco

UK public service broadcaster the BBC has commissioned a factual drama about the events surrounding the tragic murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Metropolitan police officer.

Lindsay Salt

The currently untitled 2×60’ series is to be produced by ITV Studios label Etta Pictures (Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes), the prodco run by screenwriter Jeff Pope.

Pope will serve as both writer and executive producer on the project, which the BBC claims “will be handled with sensitivity and respect.” The production team are said to be in touch with Everard’s family.

The drama will examine the circumstances that allowed sexual offender Wayne Couzens to become, and remain, a Metropolitan Police officer.

On the evening of March 3, 2021, he kidnapped 33-year-old marketing executive Everard in South London and drove her to Kent, where he murdered her. Couzens was later sentenced to life imprisonment.

The series will reveal how the case brought into sharp focus entrenched issues of misogyny and institutional failings within the police.

Lindsay Salt, director, BBC Drama, said: “Drama has a unique ability to sensitively and respectfully tackle real life subjects and this series will explore the impact of this horrific crime, the misogyny and failings from within the Met Police and what lessons can be learnt.

“Award-winning writer Jeff Pope will treat this with the utmost care, helping to ensure that the issues that led to Sarah Everard’s murder remain in the public consciousness for years to come, whilst continuing to hold the police to account.”