LONDON (AP) – A police officer has been arrested on charges of kidnapping and murder in connection with a woman who went missing in London last week, according to the British Metropolitan Police. Police said on Wednesday that the man’s being a serving police officer is “shocking and deeply troubling.”
Police said the man, who is in his 40s, was arrested late Tuesday in Kent, southeast London, as part of the investigation into the disappearance of Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing manager who disappeared while walking home from a friend’s apartment in South London on March 3.
Police said the suspect was a serving officer in the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command and responsible for patrolling diplomatic buildings.
He was first arrested on charges of kidnapping and on Wednesday he was “further arrested on charges of murder and a separate charge of indecent exposure.”
The officer was off duty at the time of Everard’s disappearance. The police did not say whether he knew Everard. Police said he had been arrested along with a woman in her thirties who was being held on suspicion of assisting a perpetrator. Both suspects remained in custody.
“This is a serious and important development in our search for Sarah and the fact that the man arrested is a serving Metropolitan Police officer is both shocking and deeply troubling,” said Assistant Commissioner Nick Ephgrave.
Investigators searched locations in London and a house and forest in Kent after the officer and the woman were arrested. The officer has been taken into custody at a London police station.