Three police officers could be prosecuted over ‘inappropriate messages’ sent during the investigation of Sarah Everard’s murder.

Sarah, 33, was raped and strangled to death by PC Wayne Couzens, who abducted her as she walked home in south London on March 3 last year.

The case seriously undermined confidence in the Metropolitan Police as the public learnt the marketing executive’s killer was working for the force.

Now it thought two serving Met officers and one former Met officer will be questioned over messages sent during the investigation, and separate messages exchanged in 2019.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has asked the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to consider potential charges.

A spokesman for the watchdog said: ‘Our investigation into sending & sharing of inappropriate messages by officers on WhatsApp has been completed.

‘We provided a file of evidence to the CPS in December to consider potential offences against 3 individuals… We await its decision.’

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An independent review is already being carried out into the Met’s vetting, recruitment and training procedures in the wake of Sarah’s murder.

Her death was one of many scandals surrounding the Met, which led to Commissioner Dame Cressida Dick’s shock resignation last night.

The jailing of two officers who took ‘inappropriate’ pictures of murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman also seriously dented the force’s reputation.

Dame Cressida was ‘put on notice’ by Mayor Sadiq Khan after racism, misogyny, homophobia and bullying was discovered among officers at Charing Cross station.

In one exchange, officers made rape jokes and multiple references to sexual violence saying ‘I would happily rape you’ and ‘if I was single I would happily chloroform you’.

One officer was referred to as ‘Mcrapey Raperson’ in WhatsApp messages because of rumours that he had brought a woman to a police station to have sex with her.

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In another exchange, an officer said: ‘Knock a bird about and she will love you’, adding that ‘they are “biologically programmed to like that s***’.

Vile language was regularly dismissed as ‘banter’, which made officers feel unable to raise concerns.

In total, 14 officers were investigated by the IOPC. Two were found to have a case to answer for gross misconduct – one of whom resigned and one was sacked.

At a misconduct hearing in September a panel chose not to name the two police officers who were dismissed.

Misconduct was proven against another two – one of whom received a written warning – while another four had internal measures to improve their performance.

Nine are still serving with the force, while another is working as a contractor in a staff role.

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