Clare Tett
Introduction
Clare Tett was a Police Constable with the Metropolitan Police until a public misconduct hearing at Palestra House in London found she had improperly accessed police records connected to Wayne Couzens — the imprisoned murderer of Sarah Everard — and to the investigation into Everard’s disappearance, and had then given an untrue account of what she had done. On a single day in March 2021, while serving as a constable, Tett used police systems to access or attempt to access the custody records of Wayne Couzens and his wife Olena Couzens, and a crime report relating to Sarah Everard’s disappearance, with no policing purpose for doing so. The hearing, held over 13-22 October 2026, ended her policing career with dismissal and a place on the national barred list.
Background Information
Wayne Couzens was a serving Metropolitan Police officer when he abducted, raped and murdered Sarah Everard in March 2021; the case became one of the most consequential scandals in the force’s history. Everard was reported missing on March 3, 2021, and Couzens was arrested within the week, later pleading guilty and receiving a whole-life order. His wife Olena Couzens was also drawn into the public record of the case. Tett’s access to the Couzenses’ custody records and to the crime report on Everard’s disappearance — reference CRIS 1205390/21 — came on March 10, 2021, one week after Everard vanished, through the police intelligence systems NSPIS and the Integrated Information Portal (IIP).
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Dismissed for gross misconduct. The panel found Tett accessed or attempted to access records about the Couzens family and the Everard disappearance with no proper policing purpose, and gave untrue explanations during the misconduct investigation. Three of the four alleged breaches were proven at the gross misconduct level.
According to the Met’s published outcome summary, on March 10, 2021 Police Constable Clare Tett used NSPIS to access or attempt to access, amongst other things, Olena Couzens’ custody record and Wayne Couzens’ custody record. In addition she used the Integrated Information Portal to access or attempt to access, amongst other things, CRIS 1205390/21 relating to the disappearance of Sarah Everard. The Met stated plainly that these accesses “were not undertaken in the course of her duties and she had no proper policing purpose to do so.”
The case reached a public hearing more than four years after the accesses. The Met’s summary records that the account Tett gave during the misconduct investigation, in writing on or about April 14, 2021 and/or November 11, 2022, “was untrue.” The hearing at the Misconduct Hearing Suite at Palestra House, 197 Blackfriars Road, ran across 13-22 October 2026, with the identities of victims and witnesses protected during the proceedings as appropriate.
The panel, chaired by Dale Simon, found the allegations proven and that Tett had breached the Standards of Professional Behaviour for Confidentiality, Orders & Instructions and Discreditable Conduct at the level of gross misconduct. A fourth alleged breach, Honesty & Integrity, was not proven. The chair determined that dismissal without notice was the appropriate sanction, and Tett will be placed on the College of Policing Barred List, which prevents her re-entry to policing in any UK force.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The outcome was published by the Met among its November 2026 batch of misconduct results, with the chair’s full finding and outcome document released alongside a public summary. The case revived the specific concern that followed the Everard murder: that officers with database access might look up details of the case for curiosity rather than duty. The Met’s summary made no finding about Tett’s motive — only that she had no proper policing purpose — and the hearing’s protected-identity arrangements kept the victims and witnesses unnamed in the outcome record.
Current Status
Tett has been dismissed without notice from the Metropolitan Police and placed on the College of Policing Barred List following the October 2026 hearing. No criminal proceedings against her were announced in the outcome; the sanction is the policing disciplinary system’s own — dismissal and a career-wide bar. The finding closes a five-year route from the March 2021 database accesses, through written explanations in 2021 and 2022 that the panel found untrue, to a public gross misconduct hearing held more than five years after the original events.
Impact on Their Career/Life
A policing career ended at the rank it began: constable, dismissed, barred. The barred-list entry means the dismissal is portable across all UK forces, and the published outcome attaches Tett’s name permanently to the most sensitive dataset the Met guards — the records around Sarah Everard’s murder and the family of the officer who committed it. Her case now sits in the Met’s public misconduct-outcome archive as part of the accountability record the force built after the Everard case.