Cops guilty of sending offensive and racist messages in WhatsApp group with Wayne Couzens

Two Met Police officers who ‘joked’ about raping their colleagues in a group chat with killer cop Wayne Couzens have been warned they face jail.

PC Jonathan Cobban, 35, and ex-PC Joel Borders, 45, were found guilty of sharing ‘grossly offensive’ material on WhatsApp with the disgraced officer in 2019.

PC William Neville, 33, was cleared of sharing such material at City of London Magistrates’ Court today.

Couzens, a former parliamentary and diplomatic protection officer, was given a full life term last year for the kidnap, rape and murder of 33-year-old Sarah Everard.

Detectives investigating the case discovered the allegedly offensive material in a WhatsApp group on one of Couzens’ phones.

In the messages, the officers discuss ‘fingering DV [domestic violence] victims’ and raping and beating a colleague Borders was due to begin training with.

Cobban and Borders each denied five counts of sending by public communication network an offensive matter.

Borders was convicted of all charges while Cobban was found guilty of three of the counts but cleared of the remaining two.

Neville, of Weybridge, Surrey, denied and was cleared of two identical charges.

District Judge Sarah Turnock adjourned sentencing until November, telling Borders and Cobban: ‘You have been found guilty of these offences.

‘And these offences make no mistake about it are extremely serious.

‘You both face a very real prospect, in my opinion, of going to prison.’

Edward Brown, prosecuting, earlier said: ‘The defendants were part of a WhatsApp group with the title ‘Bottle and Stoppers/Atkin’s puppets’ along with four other officers.

‘It should be noted that from time to time the correspondents would message about work-related topics such as training [and] for advice.

‘It follows that this was a close-knit group of police officers…and there is no evidence that any of the defendants (or the other members of the group) ‘called out’ or challenged any of their co-defendants on receipt of what are said, by the prosecution, to be the offensive messages.

‘The prosecution case is that, at the time, each of the defendants was a serving police officer, training to, and employed to, protect and support the citizens of a very diverse city.

‘There were…not isolated incidents to which the co-correspondent did not somehow feel able to make objection.

‘Each defendant actively participated and chose to remain in the group.’

Referring specifically to Borders’ message about raping and beating a female colleague with whom he was about to train, Brown said: ‘The message is threatening and aggressive in its nature, we submit

‘It is victim-blaming, derogatory to victims of rape and sexual violence and to women generally, such as the words “sneaky bitch”.’

Then, referring to Cobban and Neville’s exchange about restraining a young girl, Brown said: ‘This, by Neville (but then supported in its sentiments by Cobban) implied to any right-minded observer that Neville enjoyed the need, whilst on duty, physically to restrain a very vulnerable and disturbed 15-year-old girl because he got pleasure from, or at least drew upon his experience of…with, I quote, a “struggle snuggle”, and we submit that is acting out a rape-fantasy or other non-consensual physical touching.’

During 2017, Cobban had volunteered as the Civil Nuclear Constabulary’s Race and Diversity Custodian, the court heard.

Mr Brown said the role required specialist knowledge and understanding.

Cobban was registered within an equalities consultative support network to provide social, moral and professional support to employees with protected characteristics.

All three men transferred to the Metropolitan Police in February 2019.

Giving evidence Borders said: ‘I was saying she’s the sort of person who would lead you on, sleep with you, then make a false allegation against you.

‘So really the rape and beat should have been in quotations, but it’s text isn’t it – it’s never grammatically correct.

‘This has totally been blown out of proportion.’ He continued: ‘I know it’s just me saying it, but I was well thought of in the job.

‘You can ask anyone – people actively wanted to be paired with me. I was good at the job.

‘I laugh at things that maybe I shouldn’t laugh at, but when you’re telling a joke you’re not laughing at the subject of the joke; you’re laughing at the joke.’

Cobban had denied his messages could be grossly offensive and said they were examples of a dark sense of humour which helped him cope with his job.

He said: ‘I had no reasonable expectation whatsoever that these messages would or could be read by anyone else.

‘I meant for these messages to be taken as ‘humorous banter and nothing more.

‘They were nothing more than a thoughtless, dark sense of humour.

‘None of those messages were sent with any malice.

‘Those aren’t the opinions I held then, before then and they certainly aren’t the opinions I hold now.’

Cobban was asked specifically about an exchange in which he and Neville laugh about ‘[pinning] a 15-year-old girl going mental to the floor’.

Neville writes: ‘I knew all the struggle snuggles would come in useful at some point.’ Cobban responds: ‘Haha struggle snuggles are always useful…good skills!’

Mr Brown suggested to Cobban that ‘struggle snuggle’ referred to ‘something intimate when restraining a young, 15-year-old girl’.

Cobban claimed it was a ‘slang term for a Home Office approved restraint technique’.

He said: ‘It was a technique that I’ve been taught in the Metropolitan Police Service.

‘It’s very similar to a term used – ‘met bundle’.

‘A met bundle is a multiple officer restraining technique where multiple officers restrain a person who perhaps has extreme strength and the term ‘struggle snuggle’ is just a single officer restraining someone, if that makes sense.

‘Given the context I’ve just explained to the court, I don’t see it as being offensive in any way.’

Neville accepted he had received extensive training on diversity and equality and dealing with vulnerable victims, but denied he had this in mind when sending the messages.

He told the court: ‘We’ve spent more time looking at the Code of Ethics in this courtroom than I have in my whole career.’

On August 9, 2019, Neville and Cobban discussed the ‘landmarks’ on their ‘patch’.

When Cobban says ‘London’s biggest mosque’ is on his patch, Neville responded: ‘Haha! That’s useful if you need to execute a warrant, you’ll know where they are.’

Neville confirmed he was referring to a warrant under the Terrorist Act, but denied that he had implied all Muslims were terrorists.

He said: ‘For me, with the dark sense of humour that’s been referred to before, I’m not saying every Muslim is a terrorist.

‘Would I say it out loud? Depending on the person I was saying it to, for sure, because to some people it could be offensive.

‘I’d just like to say that a close friend, an almost family member, of ours is a Muslim.

‘I’ve made this reference and said this joke and they’ve laughed because they’ve understood the humour of myself and my family, the background I’ve had and my childhood.

‘It’s a joke.’ ‘It’s dark humour, it’s satire. You can text something without meaning it in literal terms.

‘It’s sent in a nano-second.

‘When you’re joking, when you’re bantering with your mates, you’re riffing off one another and it’s snap humour that comes out, very quick fire.’

OPC Regional Director Sal Naseem said: ‘The messages sent by these police officers were inexcusable and particularly disturbing given the profession they represent. Social media cannot be a hiding place for these types of views.’

‘Behaviour of this nature seriously undermines public confidence in policing. It is part of our role, and for police forces themselves, to ensure that it is rooted out and those responsible are held to account for their actions.

‘It is also another illustration of why we wrote to police chiefs last year highlighting our concerns about inappropriate use of social media and asking them to remind forces and officers of their obligations under the police Code of Ethics and Standards of Professional Behaviour.’

Cobban, of Didcot, Oxfordshire, and Borders, of Preston, Lancs, each denied five counts of sending by public communication network an offensive matter.

Borders was convicted of all charges while Cobban was convicted of three counts and cleared of two others.

Neville, of Weybridge, Surrey, denied and was cleared two identical charges.

Sentencing was adjourned until November 2 at Westminster Magistrates’ Court.

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