Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has been urged to resign over the murder of Sarah Everard at the hands of a serving officer.

Wayne Couzens has been sentenced to a whole life order for the kidnap, rape and murder of Ms Everard.

Harriet Harman MP has asked the Home Secretary Priti Patel to take urgent action to “rebuild the shattered confidence of women in the police service”, and has told the Metropolitan police commissioner she needs to step aside to “enable these changes to be taken through”.

In a letter to Dame Cressida, the MP for Camberwell and Peckham, who is also mother of the House of Commons and chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, said: “Women need to be confident that the police are there to make them safe, not to put them at risk. Women need to be able to trust the police, not to fear them.

“I have written to the home secretary to set out a number of actions which must be taken to rebuild the shattered confidence of women in the police service.

“I think it is not possible for you to lead these necessary actions in the Metropolitan Police. I am sure that you must recognise this, and I ask you to resign to enable these changes to be taken through and for women to be able to have justified confidence in the police.”

Sarah Everard was simply walking home. Women must be able to trust the police not fear them. Women's confidence in police will have been shattered. Urgent action needed. Met Commissioner must resign. My letters to Home Sec & Met👇 pic.twitter.com/eo4CDjI3H3

Dame Cressida had attended court on Wednesday to hear how one of her own officers had abused his position to carry out his crimes.

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During the investigation into Ms Everard’s death it emerged Couzens had been linked to an alleged indecent exposure incident as far back as 2015.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct has launched an investigation into alleged failures by Kent Police to investigate.

A probe is also ongoing into alleged failures by the Met Police to investigate two allegations of indecent exposure linked to Couzens in London in February this year.

The force said Couzens passed vetting procedures and a review after his arrest found no information available at the time that would have changed the decision.

It added that he was never subject to any misconduct proceedings during his time in the force.

In a letter to Ms Patel discussing the crimes of Wayne Couzens, Ms Harman said: “It is clear that there had been all too many warning signs about him which had been swept under the carpet. It cannot be rebuilt with the attempt to reassure that this was just, as the Metropolitan Police Commissioner said, one ‘bad’un’.

“Women’s confidence in the police can only be rebuilt with substantive and immediate change.”

She called on the Home Secretary to bring forward changes including:

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