London’s Metropolitan Police missed “numerous opportunities” over many years to remove an officer from the force who has admitted multiple charges of rape and other sexual offences.
Appearing in Southwark Crown Court on Monday, David Carrick, 48, an officer who served with the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command, entered guilty pleas to charges of false imprisonment, indecent assault and four counts of rape. This was on top of 43 other offences, including 20 of rape, that he entered guilty pleas to at the Old Bailey in December.
The case has focused fresh attention on the Met’s prolonged failure to tackle offenders in its serving ranks and has provoked outrage from the public and across Westminster.
UK home secretary Suella Braverman said: “This appalling incident represents a breach of trust. It will affect people’s confidence in the police and it’s clear standards and cultures need to change.”
Yvette Cooper, shadow home secretary, said Carrick should never have been in the police in the first place. Moreover, she said the failure to suspend him permanently from active duty after he was first investigated for rape showed little had been learned since the murder of Sarah Everard in March 2021 by a serving officer.
“This is a truly shocking and appalling case with the most devastating rapes, sexual and violent crimes committed against women by a serving officer,” said Cooper.
“It is further evidence of the appalling failures in the police vetting and misconduct processes, still not addressed by government,” she added.
Carrick’s offences spanned from 2003 to 2020 and mostly took place in Hertfordshire, where he lived.
Sadiq Khan, mayor of London, said he was working with the Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to ensure that the force is more effective at removing officers whose conduct is “demonstrably criminal”.
“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,” said Khan.
Apologising to his many victims, Barbara Gray, Met assistant commissioner and lead for professionalism, said Carrick was “a prolific, serial sex offender who preyed on women over a period of many years, abusing his position as a police officer and committing the most horrific, degrading crimes”.
“The duration and nature of Carrick’s offending is unprecedented in policing,” she said, adding: “We should have spotted his pattern of abusive behaviour and because we didn’t, we missed opportunities to remove him from the organisation.”
The Met initiated a review of his service, conduct and complaints record after he was charged with rape in October 2021, which established that he had been on police systems in relation to numerous off-duty incidents both before and after he was hired.
None of the incidents resulted in criminal sanctions against him but they included allegations of harassment, domestic assault, malicious communications and burglary.
The Met’s failure to spot a pattern in these allegations are reminiscent of similar omissions in the case of Wayne Couzens, the former officer who was jailed for life in September 2021 for the murder of Everard.
In response to last year’s review into misconduct at the UK’s leading police force by Baroness Louise Casey, the Met said it had invested millions of pounds and brought in more than 400 additional officers to investigate offenders.
The Met said it was confident that Carrick’s behaviour would have been singled out by new and more robust vetting procedures in place.
Casey said less than 1 per cent of officers facing multiple allegations of serious offences — including corruption, sexual assault and domestic violence — had been dismissed.
Credit: Source link
