Wayne Couzens was named as a suspect in a sex offence 72 hours before he killed Sarah Everard, it emerged for the first time last night.
The revelation came as former Met Commissioner Lord Stevens heaped pressure on Cressida Dick, saying she must ask herself if she bears any responsibility for the failures in the case.
CCTV evidence of a car involved in an alleged flashing incident at a drive-thru McDonald's in February this year generated the name 'Wayne Couzens' as a suspect on Metropolitan Police systems – and provided his address.
Wayne Couzens was named as a suspect in a sex offence 72 hours before he killed Sarah Everard
But officers failed to realise that he was a serving officer and further inquiries were not made until after Miss Everard's disappearance on March 3.
And last night, a former head of Scotland Yard said police chief Dame Cressida must be held accountable for an 'appalling series of blunders' in the case.
In a stinging rebuke Lord Stevens, who served as Met Commissioner between 2000 and 2005, said: 'You have to look at yourself and say can I continue? Can I continue with confidence?
'Can I continue in way that brings around the change that's necessary to make the public feel safe – and in this particular instance, women safe. And further, have we got people in the police service who should not be there?'
It came as damning new claims emerged about Met police blunders.
It had been known that Couzens' car was reported by staff at a McDonald's restaurant in Swanley, Kent, after two female workers said they had been flashed by a motorist there on February 7 and again on February 27. The complaint was made on February 28.
A former head of Scotland Yard said police chief Dame Cressida must be held accountable for an 'appalling series of blunders'
But last night it emerged the CCTV evidence showing his number plate had actually brought up Couzens' name as a suspect on Met police systems.
Yesterday a McDonald's worker who was flashed by the sexual predator blasted officers for 'not acting quickly enough'. The worker, who did not want to be named, said: 'The police took our statements and took away CCTV. If they had taken this more seriously, they could easily have figured out that he was a policeman who had committed these crimes.
'The police had three days to stop him but didn't. It could have stopped him from doing a lot worse.'
Lord Stevens stopped short of calling for Dame Cressida's resignation, but suggested she could not restore faith in Britain's biggest police force after Couzens, one of her officers, was sentenced to a whole life term for the murder of Miss Everard – a 33-year-old marketing executive.
Former Met Commissioner Lord Stevens heaped pressure on Cressida Dick, saying she must ask herself if she bears any responsibility
He also criticised the force's vetting procedures describing them as 'not fit for purpose' following an 'extraordinary story of blunders' that allowed a man nicknamed 'the rapist' to join the force. Vetting officers failed to check Couzens' vehicle record, which would have revealed a link to an indecent exposure in Kent in 2015 when Couzens was reported by a male motorist driving around naked from the waist down.
Met Assistant Commissioner Nick Ephgrave has said Couzens would still have got into the force even if vetting officers had known because Kent Police failed to identify Couzens – then one of their own special constables – as the driver and decided it did not merit any further action.
Lord Stevens told LBC: 'The fact that [Couzens] in 2015 was seen to be driving around without any clothes on from his waist downwards, the fact he was called a rapist, the fact that he was a really strange individual, I mean there is no way that that man should have been given a gun... the vetting process is obviously not fit for
