Former police officer Wayne Couzens has lost his bid to reduce his whole life sentence for the rape and murder of 33-year-old Sarah Everard.

It was the first time the sentence had been imposed for a single murder of an adult not committed in the course of a terror attack.

Appealing against the term, Couzens’ lawyers argued he deserved “decades in jail” but said a whole-life term was excessive.

But on Friday, the Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett and four other judges refused to lower Couzens’ sentence.

Lord Burnett said the sentencing judge was entitled to impose a whole life order due to the facts of Couzens’ case.

Couzens’ case was heard alongside that of double killer Ian Stewart, who murdered his wife six years before he went on to murder his fiancee.

Stewart killed 51-year-old children’s author Helen Bailey in 2016 and was found guilty of her murder in 2017.

After this conviction, police investigated the 2010 death of Stewart’s wife, Diane Stewart, 47, and in February he was found guilty of her murder.

Stewart was sentenced to life in prison with a minimum of 34 years in 2017 for the murder of Ms Bailey, before being handed a whole life sentence in February 2022 after he was convicted of killing Mrs Stewart.

The double murderer’s appeal against the whole-life term was reviewed by the five senior judges and has been reduced.

He will now serve a minimum term of 35 years.

Couzens and Stewart were among five notorious killers whose sentences were reviewed.

Emma Tustin and Thomas Hughes, who killed six-year-old Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, also had their sentences reviewed, along with triple murderer Jordan Monaghan.

Arthur’s stepmother Tustin was jailed for life with a minimum term of 29 years in December last year for murder, and his father, Hughes, was sentenced to 21 years for manslaughter.

Judges increased Hughes’ sentence by three years, to 24 years, while Tustin’s has remained unchanged.

The pair had appealed against the length of their sentences – which were also referred to appeal court judges for being unduly lenient.

They were convicted for killing the youngster, who was left with an unsurvivable brain injury while in the care of his father’s partner, Tustin.

The boy, from Solihull, West Midlands, was poisoned, starved and beaten by Tustin, 32, and Hughes, 29, in a prolonged campaign of abuse.

Monaghan was handed three mandatory life sentences and ordered to serve a minimum term of 40 years at Preston Crown Court in December after he murdered two of his children and his new partner.

The 30-year-old obstructed the airways of Ruby, aged 24 days, and Logan, 21 months, in January and August 2013.

Six years later, he killed his new girlfriend, Evie Adams, 23, with a drug overdose in October 2019.

Judges were asked to consider whether Monaghan should be given a whole life sentence.

In Friday’s ruling, judges found that while a whole life order should not be imposed, the sentence should be increased to life with a minimum term of 48 years.