- June Kelly, Claire Ellison and Judith Burns
- From BBC News
2 hours ago
Credit, Reproduction/Social Network
For 20 years, David Carrick, a serial rapist and violent sex offender, wore the uniform of the London Metropolitan Police. And most of the time he carried a gun.
In his private life he abused women and subjected them to terrible humiliation. And he told his victims that they could never denounce him as hardly anyone would believe his reports.
Carrick has already pleaded guilty to 49 counts involving 12 victims. His confessions forced London’s Metropolitan Police to apologize for failing to spot a criminal in their uniform.
Carrick was only arrested when a woman decided to report him. In October 2021, after another criminal case involving a police officer made headlines in the UK, the victim decided to contact police in the county of Hertfordshire, where Carrick had committed many of his crimes.
The woman described how she met Carrick a year earlier through dating app Tinder. When they first met, he shared stories about the police, claimed to have met famous people like the Prime Minister and said he knew how to use firearms. He also mentioned his pet snake. He told her he wanted a submissive wife.
After getting her drunk, he took her to a hotel room where, she says, he raped her. Carrick was arrested and charged.
‘snowball’
In his first appearance in court, he denied the charges. The police officer leading the investigation, Iain Moor, said the first charge was only the catalyst for many more cases to come to light.
When he finally saw him in the dock, Carrick’s many victims who had once been bullied and silenced began to emerge. “The investigations developed like a snowball,” says Moor. The first woman to report this did not know that it would empower so many other women to capture a monster.
The London Metropolitan Police have apologized after it was revealed that Carrick’s behavior on nine separate occasions had attracted attention from three police departments.
Commissioner Barbara Gray said London Police “should have recognized his pattern of abusive behaviour”. She says this failure may have “prolonged” the suffering of Carrick’s victims.
Credit, Julia Quenzler/BBC
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When he finally saw him in the dock, Carrick’s many victims once cowed and silenced began to emerge.
Carrick’s first known victim said he was falsely arrested, raped and threatened with a fake gun in 2003, when the police officer was still on probation with the company.
He went on to rape, sexually assault and abuse a number of women, saying they were his prostitutes. He told them what to wear, where to sleep, and what to eat, sometimes even forbidding them to eat. He forbade some women from speaking to other men, including their own children. He urinated on some women.
One woman said Carrick hit her with a belt. Another reported he often locked her in a small closet under the stairs. She was “intimidated and humiliated until he decided when she could leave,” says Moor.
He says Carrick hooked up with women “to keep up his appetite for humiliation and control.” “He likes to humiliate his victims,” says Moor. The investigation found at least three women had relationships with Carrick on the basis of “control and coercion.” And the police assume that there could be more victims.
Hertfordshire Police have created a dedicated section on their website for people to report directly online without having to go through a police control room or the general online reporting system.
BBC News spoke to a woman Carrick met through a dating website. He didn’t attack her and she’s not part of the legal process. She says she once visited Carrick’s house.
She says Carrick started sending a lot of messages that “really freaked me out.” “He was weird,” she says. “I felt like I should treat him well because he was a cop — and I also felt that I could certainly trust a cop.”
On the news, Carrick said he’s falling for her and accused her of getting his hopes up. Upon learning of Carrick’s crimes, she said she was shocked and appalled, believing him to be arrogant and odd.
Carrick always appeared relaxed during interrogations, claiming that sexual activity with his victims was either consensual or nonconsensual.
And for months it looked like his victims would have to take their cases to court as Carrick denied the allegations. But suddenly, last month, he admitted to most of the crimes. He would face trial on other charges in February, but he pleaded guilty to them as well.
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The street in England where David Carrick lived
His conviction sparked widespread criticism of the police.
Carrick joined the Metropolitan Police in 2001 at the age of 26 after a stint in the army. He passed the background check procedure despite twice being involved in investigations into possible wrongdoing. But he was never charged. In one of those episodes, he would have stolen from his expartner after not accepting the end of the relationship.
In 2002, when he was still a rookie, Carrick himself was investigated by police after he was accused of assaulting and molesting an expartner. There were no criminal charges and he was not referred to the London Police Professional Conduct Unit.
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Throughout his career, Carrick has been named in numerous other reports of assault, molestation and domestic violence, but he had never been prosecuted.
Throughout his career, Carrick has been named in numerous other reports of assault, molestation and domestic violence, but he had never been prosecuted. He caught the attention of Hertfordshire, Hampshire and Thames Valley police stations.
An allegation was made in 2009 when Carrick worked on the teams patrolling the UK Parliament, government offices and diplomatic missions.
In 2017, he again evaded a police investigation. But two years later he was accused of grabbing a woman by the throat. There were no criminal charges here either. And although London Police had been informed, authorities were reluctant to pursue any wrongdoing prosecution.
In the summer of 2021, Carrick was accused of rape and arrested by Hertfordshire Police, but London Metropolitan Police allowed him to continue working in limited roles.
London Police now admit their professional conduct unit made no attempt to investigate anything about Carrick.
‘To resign’
Barbara Gray, who recently took over the department, says she’s impressed. And that Carrick should have been suspended.
The rape case did not move forward after the woman dropped the charges. Carrick was already preparing to return to his duties when he was arrested again for yet another rape. When this happened, 17 years of monstrosities he practiced were finally exposed.
London Police have called for an overhaul of their decisionmaking procedures.
“This case is devastating for the trust we work so hard to earn from women and girls in London,” she says. “We know this is a day where the police have definitely taken a step back.”