A former Metropolitan Police officer said she has received hundreds of hate mail since she was banned from security over her handling of two incidents of flashing by Wayne Cousins.

A disciplinary panel found that Samantha Lee had not conducted the “correct investigative investigations” into the crimes. Cousins ​​revealed himself to female workers at a McDonald’s restaurant in Kent in late February 2021.

Both incidents occurred just days before he was kidnapped, raped and killed Sarah Everard.

She was found failing to properly investigate and lying about her actions of gross misconductwhich led to her being banned from any police force in the future.

Ms. Lee, 29, said she felt like she was “absolutely to blame” for Ms. Everard’s death, and that she had received letters from people saying she should have been the one who was kidnapped and killed.

She told BBC Newsnight: “I think I saw this horrible, horrible person who allowed a very heinous crime to happen. And he looks at me as if I’m just as guilty as Cousins.

“But there was literally nothing I could have done to change the outcome.

“I don’t want any sympathy whatsoever. I just want people to understand that there’s nothing I can do.”

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“It was a case of ‘let’s go lower’ rather than ‘let’s go higher’.

“The only person who should be blamed for that terrible and horrible crime should be Wayne Cousins.”

She was sent to McDonald’s in Swanley on 3 March 2021, the court heard, and interviewed manager Sam Taylor just hours before the Cousins ​​kidnapped Ms Everard of Clapham in southwest London.

Ms. Lee said she believed the restaurant’s CCTV was automatically deleted, so there would be no footage of Couzens from the crime, but Mr. Taylor said he showed her the footage And I told her it could be saved on a USB stick.

He also said he told her that the registration plate on Couzens’ car could be seen in the CCTV footage of the second crash.

Ms Lee said after the ruling that she had been made a “scapegoat”, adding: “I am a young PC and I am the only person who has faced any disciplinary action in relation to this.

“There is only one person responsible for everything that happened and that is Wayne Cousins.

“I have never lied.”

Cousins ​​was He was sentenced in March this year to 19 months in prison more Three counts of indecent exposure – Both at McDonald’s and one where he revealed himself to a cyclist in Kent in November 2020.

When he was sentenced he was already serving life behind bars for what he had done to Mrs. Everard.