A police officer “missed the opportunity” to arrest killer cop Wayne Couzens just hours before he abducted and murdered Sarah Everard, a disciplinary hearing has heard.

PC Samantha Lee, who has since left the Met Police and started and OnlyFans account, had the opportunity to track down and arrest Couzens after he flashed a McDonald’s worker in Swanley back in February 2021.

But the hearing heard how PC Lee failed to carry out a vital cross reference check which would have revealed the 50-year-old’s address.

Couzens had flashed at staff twice at the fast-food chain, leading to a 999 call following an incident on February 27 which the officer wasn’t sent to the outlet until March 3.

She was scheduled to go for an hour as her last job of the day and was handed CCTV, bank card details and a description of Couzens and his car by the store manager, it is alleged.

Checks revealed his name and she carried out a Police National Computer (PNC) search but failed to carry out one last cross reference check.

Despite noting he should be arrested for indecent exposure no action was taken just hours before he murdered Sarah Everard.

McDonald’s staff reported the February 7 and February 27 incidents on February 28 and collected witness statements, till receipts, and CCTV footage but the Met police central offices scheduled an officer to attend for one hour on March 3.

PC Lee spent just 15 to 20 minutes in the McDonald’s CCTV room with manager Sam Taylor, during which time Mr Taylor claims he showed her the CCTV of Couzens’ car, and handed over witness statements, till receipts containing the last four numbers on Couzen’s card.

The misconduct panel investigating Lee heard how the Met police have no system that checks the car and bank details of a suspect against members of the force.

However, PC Lee failed to log the CCTV and denied having seen it, claiming none was available because the restaurant erases straight away.

The misconduct panel heard the store has cameras that deletes after 30 days, and another automatically-deleting set that detects customers’ faces to make sure they get the correct order.

Lee did document that handwritten witness statements and till receipts had been handed to her, and rather than bagging them as evidence she kept them in her body armour pocket.

In a later interview she stated she thought the papers were not evidential, despite containing precise descriptions of a white male, around 50 years old, with grey stubble wearing a mask.

On returning to the office around 12.30pm the officer conducted a PNC check on the car, drilled down on the insurance details, and conducted a speculative PNC check on the name Wayne Couzens aged between 40 and 50.

However, she failed to conduct an integrated intelligence platform (IIP) search on the car and card, designed to simultaneously compare information held across the Met’s databases to find out if it had been stolen or reported to be involved in a crime.

PC Lee had the address already but the IIP check would have confirmed it was the same address as the Mastercard used at the McDonalds was registered to, strengthening the case.

Neither query would have linked the items to criminal activity, because they had not yet been involved in any.

‘This is surrounding a lamentably poor and rushed investigation by PC Lee...’

With that evidence he could have been arrested, said Paul Ozin on behalf of the Met Police.

After the cursory database search PC Lee clocked off for nine days of rest. Hours later Ms Everard was murdered.

PC Lee denied ever seeing the McDonald’s CCTV. She erroneously claimed on record she had carried out the IIP checks in relation to the vehicle.

On her return she was hauled in for interview because Couzens had been arrested and charged with murder, “astronomically” escalating the situation.

Speaking on behalf of the force, Paul Ozin KC questioned: “Why would Mr Taylor only be talking about the self-deleting drive-thru system and the belief he got the wrong car on the first incident when the belief foremost in his mind was that he had the right car and that he’d done it by marrying up the dates on the receipts that he gave her using the CCTV footage.

“This is surrounding a lamentably poor and rushed investigation by PC Lee which suggests that she was more intent on getting away quickly than performing her job properly.

“And illustrated by the catalogue of failings a supportive of the unpalatable conclusion that PC Lee just didn’t bother to get the CCTV even though she knew that it was important, relying on others to do that work instead of her and that she’d later lied about it after the event when she knew that the stakes had escalated astronomically.

“And to make out that proposition, by Mr Taylor’s account she spent 15 to 20 minutes at the scene when an hour had been allocation.

“She didn’t obtain local CCTV although it appears that she has written note in the field relating to that.

“PC Lee, I have no doubt about this, was concerned to ensure that the registered keeper that is Wayne Couzens was in fact the man driving the car on both occasions, we accept that she was right to do that because that is something you need to try and make sure about in the abstract.

“But one has to bear in mind this, that she must have been persuaded by something that the car had indeed been identified because she named him as the suspect. The suspect field had not previously been identified.

“She was the one who named suspect number one of one. What caused her to do that?

"The most obvious, persuasive evidence was that she saw the number plate on the CCTV and it matched the receipt that she had kept.

“There was strong evidence pointing to that car being used at that time. She went on to note that the suspect will need to be arrested for indecent exposure.”

Discussing Lee’s failure to tell anyone the receipts existed, and her decision to store them in her pocket rather than bag them up, Mr Ozin added: “She made no record of their existence or the fact that she had taken them.

"Nobody knew that they even existed until they came to light on the 12th of March, nine days after her visit and her rest days at the point at which she assumed the case had been handed over to others.

“She had not bagged them up or told anyone about their existence. PC Lee expressed the view that they were not evidential statements and had them in the pocket of her body armour.

“PC Lee accepts in her interview that they had some evidential value, obviously there was a bit more than that, they contain the timing of the transactions, and the meal details, bearing in mind the witnesses spoke about what the person who exposed themselves had ordered.

“She hasn’t really got an answer on the failure to properly to record, preserve or store receipts.”

Quoting Lee’s justification for police statement, Mr Ozin read: “I used them to put on the report and I kept them in a, like, a folder in my bag, just purely because I wasn’t, gonna, to be honest with you, wasn’t even gonna keep them at that point.

“I was just gonna use them to write the report and get the witness names and details.”

PC Lee has now left the force and is reported to have set up an OnlyFans site as Officer Naughty.

She was charged with gross misconduct by failing in two aspects, duties and responsibilities and honesty and integrity.

The hearing continues.