Wayne Couzens may keep taxpayer-funded pension as Government hits legal hurdle

‘Complex legal issues’ are complicating the forfeiture of rapist’s entitlements

Wayne Couzens may keep a taxpayer-funded pension because of “complex legal issues” preventing the Government from stripping it from him, the Telegraph can reveal. 
The 51-year-old stands to benefit from a £4,000-a-year public sector pension payout from his time serving in the force which protects Britain’s nuclear facilities, where he worked for seven and a half years before joining the Metropolitan police in 2018.
He was stripped of his separate Met Police pension in January last year, after Sadiq Khan, who as Mayor of London is the city’s police and crime commissioner, wrote to the Home Office requesting it be withheld. 
Number 10 also backed calls for the murderer and rapist to be stripped of his second pension, accrued from his time at Civil Nuclear Constabulary (CNC). 
In March last year, following his conviction, the CNC recommended the pension entitlements be forfeited. But it has now told the Telegraph the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), the administrator of its pensions scheme, is yet to confirm this has happened.
It has also emerged that it may not be possible for the benefit to be taken away at all, under current rules.
The Telegraph has learnt plans to withhold his pension are subject to an ongoing legal wrangle between government lawyers and the UKAEA, with a government spokesman blaming the delay on “complex legal issues’’. 
They confirmed there was no timeframe for when this will be resolved.
It means Couzens remains eligible to start drawing on his pension from age 60 and can take out a lump sum of up to £12,000. He is also able to start drawing a reduced rate early, at 55, in just four years. 
It comes in the wake of an official report published last week that that implicated Couzens in decades of prolific sex offending. 
MPs from both major parties have called on the Government to do everything possible to block access to the payout. 
The shadow policing minister Alex Norris said: “Couzens should never have been a police officer, he abused his role in the most terrible of ways so no one wants to see this brutal murderer benefit from his time in any police force. It was right that the Mayor of London acted to remove access to his pension from the Metropolitan Police. We would urge the Government to explore all avenues to do the same for his time in the Civil Nuclear Constabulary too.”
Sir Bob Neill, the Conservative chairman of the justice select committee, said the public would be shocked to hear Couzens could retain his pension after committing such a “terrible murder”, saying the “legality of that situation” needed to be looked into. 
The Government did not comment on the precise nature of the barriers preventing the pension being withheld, but the rules of the UKAEA pension scheme state that only “an offence in connection with any employment to which this scheme applies” can justify the forfeiture of a pension, along with breaking the Official Secrets Act and treason. 
Couzens was found guilty and sentenced to a whole life term in prison last year for kidnapping, raping and murdering Sarah Everard, 33, while a serving Met Police officer in March 2021 – an offence which occurred after he had left the CNC.
Matthew Swynnerton, a pensions lawyer at City law firm DLA Piper, said that the Government could be forced to change the law to take away his pension.
He said: “It wouldn’t be straightforward, particularly if there are changes to the regulations needed. At the same time there is a lot of public sentiment that will drive it along in a way that a regular legislative change might not benefit from. That’s not to say it’s not achievable.
“The question is whether the offence that Wayne Couzens has been convicted of has been in connection with his role as a public servant at the CNC,” he said, describing the issue as a “grey area”.
The “gold-plated” public sector pension pays out one-eightieth of an officer’s final salary annually for each year of “reckonable” service. 
Officers pay in 8 per cent of their earnings and their employer makes contributions of almost 21 per cent.
Couzens is thought to have been paid a salary of up to £43,000 when he transferred to the Met in 2018, having worked for the CNC since 2011.
Chief Constable Simon Chesterman, of the CNC, said: “The CNC is not the pensions authority or administrator of the pension scheme. On Couzens’ conviction we made a formal recommendation that any pension entitlements arising from his CNC employment should be forfeited.”
The decision on how to overcome the legal hurdle now lies with Claire Coutinho, the current secretary of state for energy security and net zero. 
The UKAEA was approached for comment.