A Kent Police officer failed to interview Wayne Couzens over a flashing incident - six years before he murdered Sarah Everard.

A police watchdog report says a male officer did investigate a case of indecent exposure in Dover in June 2015 – but the case was closed and he was left free.

Kent Police say while the officer could never have predicted what Couzens would go on to do, “the investigation should still have been carried out to a better standard”. The force has since revised its approach to investigating indecent exposures.

The news comes after former policewoman Samantha Lee was found guilty of gross misconduct in her failings in investigating two other exposure incidents centering on Couzens, the month before he attacked Ms Everard.

The Kent Police officer, not named in the report for the 2015 case, had Couzens' name and his car number plate, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) says.

Its report concluded: “The officer had a case to answer for misconduct for failing to investigate the allegation of indecent exposure appropriately and thoroughly.”

A member of the public reported the incident to Kent Police, giving details about the location, description of the driver, car make, model, colour and registration.

The officer took steps to investigate on June 12 and the force carried out checks on the vehicle and managed to confirm the name of the registered owner.

The IOPC report said “On June 18, the officer filed the investigation for closure after the informant’s reliability was questioned and he did not want to be further involved in the police investigation. No further action was taken by Kent Police.”

Couzens was a policeman at the time but the watchdog accepted that the investigating officer otherwise had no known link to him.

Kent Police had referred itself to the IOPC. The watchdog finished its investigation in March 2022 but waited for all proceedings relating to this case, and those linked, to be finalised before publishing its findings.

The IOPC then passed the matter back to the force and on April 27 this year it held a misconduct hearing for the officer.

The panel found that he had breached the standards of professional behaviour, but that it didn’t amount to misconduct nor warrant a written warning.

It was determined that reflective practice would be the most appropriate outcome. This involves formal fact-finding of what went wrong and the learning of lessons to prevent a recurrence.

The chairman of the misconduct meeting said the officer should get training on sexual offences and attend a crime academy to develop his understanding on investigatory processes

The misconduct panel commented that the officer could have contacted and interviewed Couzens. By doing so, appropriate intelligence recording may have been made against the police national database to link the suspect to subsequent investigations.

The IOPC said: “This could have affected future vetting applications but there is no certainty this alone would have prevented further offending.”

Between 2011 and 2018 Couzens, now 50, and formerly of Deal, had been employed by the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and had also been a Kent Police Special Constable between 2006 and 2009.

He was an armed Metoropolitan Police officer when he kidnapped Sarah Everard in London on March 3, 2021, brought her to the Dover area and raped and murdered her.

He admitted the offences and was given a whole life jail term for that six months later.

Couzens denied the June 2015 incident and two other charges of indecent exposure that allegedly happened in January to February 2021 and these were left on file.

But this March he got a concurrent 19-month jail sentence after admitting three other incidents of indecent exposure, one in November 2020 and two in February 2021.

It was the two cases on February 14 and 27, 2021, at McDonald’s in Swanley that Samantha Lee had been looking into as a Met officer.

A police disciplinary panel heard she interviewed the manager on March 3 hours before Ms Everard was snatched.

Ms Lee was found to have lied when later questioned about the interview, claiming that she believed that CCTV at the restaurant was deleted automatically so there would be no footage of Couzens or the offence.

Restaurant manager Sam Taylor said that he had shown Ms Lee CCTV footage and told her it could be downloaded.

Deputy Chief Constable Peter Ayling said: ‘The kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard was a watershed moment for policing in this country, and we share in the collective grief for the loss of Sarah and are disgusted that a serving police officer could commit such horrific crimes against her. Our deepest sympathies remain with Sarah’s family, friends and everyone else affected by her death.

‘Whilst the Kent Police officer who investigated the 2015 incident in Dover could never have predicted what Wayne Couzens would go on to do six years later, the investigation should still have been carried out to a better standard.

“We have revised our approach to investigating reports of indecent exposures, recognising the severe impact it can have on victims. Since 2017 all investigations are carried out by specialist officers from our Vulnerability Investigation Teams, overseen by a senior detective and reviewed by analysts to identify linked crimes or trends. We continue to review and learn from our processes to ensure any areas of improvement are identified and acted upon.

“Tackling violence against women and girls is Kent Police’s highest priority and we remain committed to doing everything we can to ensure our communities are as safe as possible and that anyone who poses a risk to members of the public is identified and held to account.”