Met Police armed officer revealed as one of Britain’s worst sex offenders

For free real time breaking news alerts sent straight to your inbox sign up to our breaking news emails

Sign up to our free breaking news emails

Please enter a valid email address

Please enter a valid email address

SIGN UP

I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy

A serving Metropolitan Police officer has been revealed as one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders after admitting attacking a dozen women over an 18-year period.

The force has apologised to victims after it emerged Pc David Carrick, 48, had come to the attention of police over nine incidents including allegations of rape, domestic violence and harassment between 2000 and 2021.

Carrick, who joined the Met in 2001 before becoming an armed officer with the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command in 2009, faced no criminal sanctions or misconduct findings.

He was only suspended after being arrested over a second rape complaint in October 2021 – though the full picture can still not be reported for legal reasons.

Carrick appeared at Southwark Crown Court on Monday to plead guilty to four counts of rape, false imprisonment and indecent assault relating to a 40-year-old woman in 2003.

At the Old Bailey in December, Carrick, who served in the Army before joining the Met, admitted 43 charges against 11 other women, including 20 counts of rape, between March 2004 and September 2020.

He denied a further count of rape in September 2020 relating to a 13th woman, whose allegation triggered the investigation, and the Crown Prosecution Service decided it was not in the public interest to proceed to trial on the charge.

Over drinks in a pub on September 4 2020, Carrick told her he was a firearms officer nicknamed “Bastard Dave”, showed her his warrant card and boasted of meeting famous people, including then-prime minister Boris Johnson, in the course of his work, a court previously heard.

In total, Carrick, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, has pleaded guilty to 49 offences relating to 12 women between 2003 and 2020.

They are:

– 24 counts of rape

– nine counts of sexual assault

– five counts of assault by penetration

– three counts of coercive and controlling behaviour

– three counts of false imprisonment

– two counts of attempted rape

– one count of attempted sexual assault by penetration

– one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent

– one count of indecent assault

They include the rape of nine different women but some of the charges are multiple incident counts, meaning they relate to more than 80 sexual offences, including at least 48 rapes.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said she will sentence Carrick over two days from February 6.

The case will plunge the Met into a fresh crisis, coming after a string of damaging scandals, and is a major setback in Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley’s attempts to clean up the force’s reputation.

Dame Louise Casey, who is already carrying out a review of the culture in the Met, called for a full inquiry into the Carrick case and said she would volunteer to carry out the work herself if necessary.

Assistant Commissioner Barbara Gray, the Met’s lead for professionalism, said Carrick’s offending was “unprecedented in policing” and apologised to his victims for failing to rout him out of the force.

“We should have spotted his pattern of abusive behaviour and because we didn’t we missed opportunities to remove him from the organisation,” she said.

Downing Street described Carrick’s crimes as “appalling” and the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “Police forces must root out these officers to restore the public’s trust, which has been shattered by high-profile events such as this.”

Labour former cabinet minister Harriet Harman, the mother of the House, criticised the Met’s response as “woefully inadequate”. She said in a tweet: “Senior officers who kept him in the Met should be fired. We need transparency and accountability.”

Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the case “is further evidence of appalling failures in the police vetting and misconduct processes, still not addressed by Government, that he was ever able to serve as a police officer”.

“Everyone who demanded change will feel badly let down today,” she said.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan added: “Londoners will be rightly shocked that this man was able to work for the Met for so long, and serious questions must be answered about how he was able to abuse his position as an officer in this horrendous manner.”

Detective Chief Inspector Iain Moor, from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit, said the “sheer number of offences” show Carrick’s “prolific and callous nature” and he expects more victims to come forward.

Carrick met some of the women through online dating sites such as Tinder and Badoo or on social occasions, using his position as a police officer to gain their trust.

“Whilst he was not a man that stalked the streets scouting for victims, he invested time in developing relationships with women to sustain his appetite for degradation and control. The coercive nature of his offending undermined his victims in the most destructive way,” Mr Moor said.

Some of the women were raped on multiple occasions over months or years, with many of those attacks involving violence that would have left them injured.

Victims were locked in a small cupboard under the stairs in Carrick’s Hertfordshire home for hours without food or forced to clean his house naked.

Carrick whipped one woman with a belt, urinated on some of his victims and told them when they could eat and sleep.

He called women “fat and lazy” or his “slave” as he controlled them financially, isolated them from friends and family and banned them from speaking with other men or their own children.

“He thrived on humiliating his victims and cleverly used his professional position to intimate there was no point in them trying to seek help because they would never be believed,” Mr Moor said.

“The coercive nature of his offending undermined his victims in the most destructive way.”

The officer described the false imprisonment charges as “shocking”, adding: “Carrick forced his victim into a small under-stairs cupboard at his home, where they stayed -intimidated and humiliated – until he chose when they could come out. I have seen bigger dog crates.”

“It is unbelievable to think these offences could have been committed by a serving police officer,” he said.

“The offending was absolutely abhorrent and I’m disgusted by it. I have a lot of pride and respect in the police service and I’m proud to be a policeman.

“When something like this happens, it obviously places a big cloud over the service as a whole.

“But I’m hoping that as a result of the thorough investigation that we’ve done and the fact that he’s been brought to justice will hopefully give people the confidence to be able to report matters to the police.”