A Metropolitan Police officer is facing life in prison after admitting a horrific campaign of rape and abuse against women throughout his policing career.
PC David Carrick, 48, subjected at least a dozen victims to appalling physical and emotional abuse over the course of 18 years, while wielding his status as a police officer to ensure they stayed silent, the Metropolitan police have revealed.
The armed officer, who help to guard politicians and VIPs for more than a decade as a trusted member of the Met’s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command, forced different women into humiliating and degrading sexual acts, whipped one with a belt, and kept some locked for hours inside a tiny cupboard.
Scotland Yard is being criticized heavily for the crisis after it emerged a string of opportunities to reveal his true character were missed.
Carrick known to colleagues as “Bastard Dave” was finally caught in October 2021 when a woman came forward to accuse the officer of raping her in a hotel room at the end of a Tinder date.
News of his arrest then made 12 more women come forward to reveal Carrick’s catalogue of physical and sexual abuse dating back to 2003, in the infancy of his career in the Met.
Carrick has now pleaded guilty to 49 charges, confirming his status as one of Britain’s worst ever serial rapists.
He has admitted raping women on at least 48 different occasions between 2003 and 2020.It can now be revealed that Carrick came to police attention as a suspect nine times between 2000 and 2020, for allegations including harassment of former girlfriends and assaulting women.
[ruby_related heading=”More Read” total=5 layout=1]Despite the crime, he was never arrested or charged, he successfully passed two rounds of vetting, and a series of opportunities to investigate Carrick’s position in the force were missed.
“On behalf of the Metropolitan Police, I want to apologise to the women who have suffered at the hands of David Carrick,” said Assistant Commissioner Barbara Gray.
“We should have spotted his pattern of abusive behaviour and because we didn’t, we missed opportunities to remove him from the organisation.
“We are truly sorry that being able to continue to use his role as a police officer may have prolonged the suffering of his victims.”
Colleagues said Carrick’s nickname was not linked to sexual offending, but based on his reputation for “mean” and “cruel” behaviour.
He used online dating sites like Badoo and Tinder to target women, and came across initially as “fun-loving, charming, and charismatic”, investigators said.
One woman revealed how Carrick flashed his warrant card when they first met for a date, he boasted about protecting then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and openly called himself a “dominant bastard”.
“He introduced himself as a police officer and said ‘you are safe with me’,” said senior CPS prosecutor Shilpa Shah.
“Most victims said they feared they would not be believed because he was a police officer.” She added: “He was very manipulative, self-confident almost to the point of being cocky, and he knew what he was doing.”
In harrowing accounts of the abuse they suffered, women revealed how Carrick had urinated on them, forced them to clean his house naked, controlled their eating habits, and locked them in a cupboard beneath the stairs which was little bigger than a dog crate.
“It is unbelievable to think these offences could have been committed by a serving police officer” said Detective Chief Inspector Iain Moor, who led the investigation by the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit.
“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.”
Carrick, from Stevenage, pleaded guilty to 24 rape charges – including some which represented multiple attacks – five counts of sexual assault by penetration, two attempted rapes, three counts of controlling and coercive behaviour, three incidents of false imprisonment, 12 counts of sexual assault, indecent assault, causing a person to engage in sexual activity, and attempted assault by penetration.
Speaking on the steps of Southwark Crown Court, Chief Crown Prosecutor, Jaswant Narwal, said: “This is one of the most shocking cases the Crown Prosecution Service has dealt with involving a serving police officer.
“Anyone hearing of the 49 counts David Carrick had pleaded guilty to against 12 victims would agree the sheer magnitude of his offending is horrfying. Today the victims who suffered at the hands of David Carrick have finally seen justice.
“It is their courage in standing up against this heinously abusive man – a police officer – that has helped to secure his conviction.”
