How ‘monster’ Met officer was convicted of more sex crimes
3 hours agoLewis Adams
SuppliedSerial rapist David Carrick was described as a monster — a Metropolitan Police officer whose actions were also branded abhorrent, manipulative and a vile misuse of power.
The 50-year-old’s mask of respectability was ripped away in 2021 as an avalanche of testimonies piled up from women describing harrowing abuse he inflicted upon them.
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said offending on the scale of Carrick’s “must never happen again” after he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 32 years in 2023.
But then even more allegations came to light.
Carrick, from Stevenage, has now been found guilty of molesting a 12-year-old girl in the late-1980s when he was 14 years old and raping a woman during a relationship more than 20 years later. He has been handed an extra life sentence.
His trial at the Old Bailey painted a picture of a man who had been intoxicated by power since his teenage years.
How did his victims help to further condemn a man already considered one of the UK’s most despicable sex offenders?
Hertfordshire PoliceThere was a moment in 2021 when two women — both from entirely different parts of the country — were struck by a familiar face on the news.
It was the face of a man whose crimes had haunted them, and he was finally being brought to justice.
Publicity about David Carrick’s arrest that October, leading to his multiple life sentences, would become the catalyst in their own fights for justice.
For his first victim, who was 12 years old when he repeatedly sexually abused her, it was also the moment she realised her abuser had become a police officer.
“When I heard he was a Metropolitan Police officer, the words I have always used were ‘God help anyone with him with a warrant card’,” she told jurors during this latest trial.
Carrick, who was a teenager at the time of the offences in the late-1980s, would muffle her screams by covering her mouth as he carried out his sexual assaults.
‘Demanding, controlling and covert’
Decades later, his treatment of women had only worsened.
Carrick’s second victim in this month’s trial met him on a dating app, where she said he first came across as “friendly, flirty”.
But, like so many other women have since testified, the scales soon fell from her eyes.
Hertfordshire Constabulary/CPSHe became angry if the university student did not reply to his messages, acting in a “demanding, controlling and covert” way, she told the trial.
Crucially, the “charming, witty, sarcastic” stranger she fell in love with was, in her own words, “stronger than me ten-fold”.
Carrick would strangle her, call her abusive names and kick her out of the house if she did not obey him.
But the course of history could have been altered if a written confession by Carrick, which lay undiscovered for 35 years, had been flagged sooner to the police.
In the note dated 29 August 1990 and filed with his medical records, Carrick had admitted abusing the 12-year-old.
Signed by “Dave”, Carrick wrote the girl was “not crazy” and it was “true”, but he had stopped about four months ago.
Carrick wrote: “I know how [the girl] must feel. That’s why I stopped and promised I would never go near her again.
He offered to go away and never be seen again, adding: “Sorry to you and especially sorry to [the girl] but she does not have to worry ever again. Please do not try to talk about it.”
Carrick had written the letter after the girl told her mother what was going on.
Det Insp Iain Moor, who led the original investigation for the major crime team in Hertfordshire, said the future would have been “very different” had Carrick’s offending been picked up in 1990.
“It’s difficult to say exactly what that path would be, but I’m sure it’d be different,” he said.
CPSCarrick’s forced vulnerability in that letter was a far cry from the respected police officer he went on to become — one who carried a gun in his role within the Met’s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command.
Inspired by the bravery of other women contributing to Carrick’s very public downfall in 2021, both the 12-year-old, now an adult, and the woman gave detailed accounts to detectives of what he did to them and he was brought back before the courts.
During his previous court appearances which resulted in his jailing, Carrick had admitted his offences.
This time round, he pleaded not guilty and his victims had to deal with a trial.
Social mediaOpening the prosecution’s case, Tom Little KC said Carrick was “predatory and controlling”, and the judge ruled jurors could be told of his previous convictions, which is something that is usually not allowed in trials.
He used a “Mr Nice Guy” image before committing criminal offences “at will”, Mr Little said.
But when afforded the chance to give evidence in his own defence, Carrick declined to step up to the witness box.
He was, according to BBC courts producer Neil Henderson, “impassive” during the evidence stages in this month’s trial.
“It was really striking to see and hear the women involved testify to the awful things they went through,” said Henderson.
“It was really grim material, but Carrick just sat there.
“There was no obvious tell as to what his mental and emotional processes might have been.
“If he has a side of the story, he doesn’t want to offer it. But maybe there simply isn’t one.”
Hertfordshire Constabulary/CPSA clue as to Carrick’s deflective attitude towards the allegations could be found in his interview with police, however.
Speaking to officers at HMP Full Sutton in East Yorkshire, he accused Hertfordshire Police of stirring up “anti-Met rhetoric” by investigating.
He also accused the woman of making up her accounts of abuse “because of the Me Too movement“.
The jury, however, disagreed.
They found him guilty of two counts of rape, two sexual assaults and coercive and controlling behaviour against the woman.
They also convicted him of five offences of sexual assault against the 12-year-old.
It followed Carrick admitting 71 offences involving 12 women, including rapes, when he appeared in court in 2022 and 2023.
Those offences followed a similar pattern. Carrick would abuse his policing role to lure the victims into a false sense of security, before committing violent and degrading sexual violence against them.
It led to Det Supt Iain Moor to brand Carrick a “monster”.
Closing the prosecution’s latest case, Mr Little said Carrick must have felt “invincible” due to his job as a police officer.
As the nine guilty verdicts were read out at the Old Bailey on Wednesday, Carrick shook his head repeatedly in the dock.
He appeared to sigh as he was convicted of raping his former partner.
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