Former police constable from Preston accused of ‘joking about raping female colleague’ with Sarah Everard’s killer Wayne Couzens

Former PC Joel Borders, 45, from Preston, and serving Met constables Jonathon Cobban, 35, and William Neville, 34, were charged with exchanging “grossly offensive” messages with Sarah Everard’s killer, Wayne Couzens.

Prosecutor Edward Brown QC told Westminster Magistrates’ Court that “grossly racist, sexist, misogynistic” messages were sent on the chat between April 5 and August 9 2019.

The messages were discovered on Couzens’ phone after he was arrested last year.

All three were formerly officers in the Civil Nuclear Constabulary and transferred to the Met on February 11, 2019.

Each has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which relate to improper use of public electronic communications network, contrary to the Communications Act 2003.

Borders is accused of speaking about raping a female colleague on April 25.

Speaking about the colleague with Cobban, he is accused of saying: “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, he also allegedly told Cobban: “I can’t wait to get on guns so I can shoot some c*** in the face”.

Cobban allegedly replied to this saying he wanted to “taser a cat and a dog to see which reacts better”, adding: “Same with children. Zap zap you little f******”.

In his police interviews, Cobban has said he regretted sending the messages, describing them as “stupid”.

Borders described his comments as “dark humour which I appreciate will offend some people”.

He said: “I was professional on the job and I don’t think rape is a joke and I don’t think violence against women is a joke.”

Borders said that at the time the messages were sent he had been a training officer and had no experience in domestic abuse cases.

He said: “You can see that the jokes stopped at the end of the year as we all became more mature and experienced.”

Couzens, whose messages were not read in court due to other ongoing investigations, is serving a whole life sentence for the kidnap, rape and murder of 33-year-old Ms Everard in March last year.

The trial continues.