Met Police rapist David Carrick trained to respond to domestic abuse after attacking women, court hears
Predator had already raped two of his victims when he passed specialist course
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Serial rapist David Carrick completed specialist police training on responding to domestic violence after abusing two of his victims, a court has heard.
The 48-year-old abused multiple victims over 17 years, all during his career in the Metropolitan Police.
At the start of a two-day sentencing hearing on Monday, prosecutor Tom Little KC said Carrick’s first known rape took place little over a year into his service as a constable.
“Throughout his time as a police officer he undertook a number of training courses, which included in 2005 a training course on domestic abuse [and] violence,” he told Southwark Crown Court.
“He frequently relied on his charm to beguile and mislead the victims in the first place and would then use his power and control - in part because of what he did for a living - to stop them leaving or consider reporting him.
“He was no doubt aware that they would conclude they would be unlikely to be believed if they were to come forward on their own and claim that a Metropolitan Police officer had raped them.”
By the time Carrick completed his training on domestic abuse, he had already raped two of his victims and was about to begin a relationship with a third, the court heard.
Mr Little said that he met one of the women in a bar, telling her “that he was the safest person that she could be with and that he was a police officer”.
“The offending on the indictment spans a period of 17 years increasing in its frequency more recently and with an increasing level of humiliation being inflicted,” the prosecutor added.
“If the offending had to be accurately and fairly summarised it would be a systematic catalogue of violent and brutal sexual offences perpetrated on multiple victims, whether he was in a controlling or coercive relationship with them or not or even if it was just a single occasion. The reality was that it did not matter who the victim was.”
Carrick was initially a constable in the borough of Merton, then Barnet, and became an armed officer with what became the Metropolitan Police Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection command in 2009.
Six years before taking the post, he put what was described as a “black handgun” to a victim’s head as she tried to fight him off.
Mr Little said that prosecutors were not arguing that the gun was real, but that the victim did not know if it was.
The court heard that when she asked Carrick why he had a gun, “he said he liked guns and that he could not have her screaming the place down”.
Years later, Carrick threatened another victim with his police baton and sent her a photo of his police-issue firearm, writing: “Remember I am the boss.”
Carrick has pleaded guilty to 49 offences, which represent more than 70 instances of serious sexual offending.
They include 24 anal rapes, five vaginal rapes, 19 oral rapes and other sexual assaults, many of which were committed “during controlling and coercive and relationships”.
Scotland Yard has admitted failing to identify an “escalating pattern” of abuse towards women by serial rapist David Carrick, leaving him free to target more victims.
Carrick was allowed to remain in Britain’s largest force despite police recording nine incidents, including rape and violent assault, because he was never prosecuted.
He started his campaign of abuse before joining up, with the Metropolitan Police investigating him in 2000 for allegedly harassing and burgling a former partner after refusing to accept the end of the relationship.
No charges were brought and when he was vetted as part of his application to join the same force the following year, he passed the checks and was allowed to become a constable.
Despite coming to the attention of police again in 2002, 2004, 2009, 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2021, none of the incidents resulted in prosecution and Scotland Yard repeatedly decided that he had “no case to answer” for disciplinary proceedings.
Months after Sarah Everard was murdered by another serving Met officer in March 2021, Carrick was finally arrested by Hertfordshire Police for raping one of his victims and placed on restricted duties.
But the investigation ended with no action being taken and in September 2021, the Metropolitan Police said it “determined that he had no case to answer in relation to any misconduct matters” and lifted all restrictions. Weeks later, he was arrested again and charged.
No disciplinary action has been taken against officers in the Director of Professional Standards who repeatedly kept Carrick in his job, or colleagues who failed to raise concerns about his conduct, despite nicknaming him “b*****d Dave”.