Ex-officer barred for misconduct says she been made a 'scapegoat' for failings over Sarah Everard's murder.
Some messages blamed Samantha Lee for Ms Everard's death, saying she had blood on her hands.An inquiry will examine the circumstances leading to the murder, the Met said.
The Met said that Ms Lee's disciplinary hearing was not about her handling of the investigation of Couzens but about her "honesty and integrity" during it.She revealed some of the most abusive messages sent to her on social media have been reported to police, including ones "saying that it should have been me that was kidnapped and murdered"."The only person that should be blamed for that awful, awful, horrendous crime" should be Wayne Couzens, she added.
The former officer was found to have failed to make "the correct investigative inquiries" when she went to the McDonald's Couzens exposed himself in. Ms Lee says the Met was also treating indecent exposure as a "low level" offence and that is why she was not asked to investigate immediately.Ms Lee admits making mistakes in her probe but still insists she did not lie about not viewing the CCTV footage, suggesting the McDonald's manager had showed the images to another officer, not her.
Ms Lee said the police should have sent someone to investigate sooner, "there was definitely opportunities that were missed, but not by myself. I'd say that's more by the organisation".
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