EXCLUSIVE: Former Met Police officer who shared 'racist sexist and misogynistic' messages with killer cop Wayne Couzens finally been jailed

A former Metropolitan Police officer who shared "grossly racist, sexist, and misogynistic" messages with killer cop Wayne Couzens (above) has finally been jailed more than two years after being sentenced after losing a legal battle to overturn his conviction.

Former PCs Jonathon Cobban and Joel Borders each received a three-month jail sentence in November 2022 for the offences of sending grossly offensive messages on a public communications network.

Westminster Magistrates' Court heard that the officers joked about raping a female colleague, Tasering children and people with disabilities, and displayed racist views in a WhatsApp group chat called 'Bottle and Stoppers' in 2019.

But neither were instantly jailed after lawyers acting for them brought an appeal against their convictions and sentences at the High Court last.

In a ruling in July 2024, the Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr and Mr Justice Saini dismissed the appeals.

In response, Cobban, gave up the legal battle and his sentence was activated. He has since been released.

But, it has emerged that Borders battled on and took the fight to the Supreme Court.

Earlier this month the highest court in the country refused him leave to appeal, ending the case.

At a subsequent hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court, Borders surrendered to the court and was sent to prison.

Among those in the group was Couzens, who was sentenced to a whole-life term in September 2021 after he admitted to the kidnap, rape and murder of 33-year-old marketing executive Sarah Everard while he was a serving Met officer six months earlier.

Couzens used his warrant card to get Sarah into a hire car in south London on the evening of March 3, before he drove her to Kent and carried out the heinous acts before disposing of her body.

Messages from Cobban and Borders were discovered on Couzens' devices when they were searched after his arrest over the murder.

Cobban from Didcot in Oxfordshire was found guilty of three counts of sending grossly offensive messages, while Borders, from Preston in Lancashire, was convicted of five charges.

At the High Court hearing Nicholas Yeo, acting for the two defendants, argued the offence they were convicted of should 'not extend to private consensual messaging" and should be aimed at messages 'that would not be welcomed by the addressee'.

He added in a written submission: 'It is lawful to send jokey, bombastic and iconoclastic messages to a closed group of people who will not be grossly offended thereby.'

Jocelyn Ledward KC, acting for the Director of Public Prosecutions, said in her written submission: 'The provision is not exclusively concerned with protecting people from receipt of unsolicited messages of the proscribed character, but is rather aimed at ensuring propriety in communications over electronic public networks.'

In a summary of their decision, Baroness Carr said the pair 'could have no reasonable expectation of privacy" over the messages which "relate to policing actions'.