The Metropolitan Police were handed CCTV of Wayne Couzens flashing a drive-thru McDonald’s worker three days before Sarah Everard’s murder, it has been claimed.

A quick check of his car number plate details on the DVLA website revealed his name and address in Deal, Kent.

But still investigators failed to identify him as a police officer until it was too late for Sarah, who was kidnapped by Couzens in Clapham, south London.

Couzens used his warrant card to ‘arrest’ the 33-year-old marketing account manager on March 3 and then took her to a remote location in Kent.

He then went on to rape her, strangle her to death with his police issue belt, burn her body in a fly tipped fridge, then dump it in a pond.

The Met Police’s Commissioner Cressida Dick has so far resisted calls to resign after Couzens was given a rare whole life sentence on Thursday.

Confidence in her force dipped even further after it issued advice for women to ‘run into a house’ or ‘wave down a bus’ if they have concerns about a lone male officer.

Now, a McDonald’s worker who says she was flashed by Couzens on two occasions in February has blasted Investigators for ‘not acting quickly enough’.

Police were told of the alleged incidents at the drive-thru on the A20 near Swanley, Kent, on February 28, but they took place earlier that month.

The worker, who did not want to be named, told MailOnline: ‘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.’

On February 7 and February 27, Couzens was said to have arrived on both occasions to take his order, only for staff to see he wasn’t wearing any trousers.

It was previously reported that the incidents were reported to police, but the fact officers knew his name but failed to spot he was a serving Met Police officer is a new revelation.

There are very few people with the same name in the country, especially in London and the South East, according to address searches.

It means a basic investigation could have identified him as a serving police firearms specialist and diplomatic protection officer.

The Met said the McDonald’s allegations were ‘allocated for investigation’ but ‘by the time of Sarah’s abduction it was not concluded’.

It referred itself to the Independent Office of Police Conduct watchdog which is now looking into its handling of the report.

The IOPC is also investigating Kent Police, which is accused of not properly following up reports in 2015 that a man had been spotted driving down a road with no trousers on.

Couzens’ car number plate was linked this incident, but the Met blamed their counterparts in Kent, saying the force ‘investigated this allegation and decided to take no further action’.

The Met added: ‘Our review found that the record of this allegation and outcome may not have been found during the vetting checks.’

It admitted that ‘one of a range of checks’ when Couzens applied to join the force ‘may not have been undertaken correctly’.

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