London’s Metropolitan Police have missed “numerous opportunities” over the years to remove officers from the force who have admitted to multiple allegations of rape and other sexual offences.
Appearing at Southwark Crown Court on Friday, 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 is on top of 43 other offences, including 20 rapes, to which he entered guilty pleas at the Old Bailey in December.
This case has focused new attention on the Met who for a long time failed to tackle the offense in a serving rank and has provoked anger from the public and the Westminster right.
UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman said: “This appalling incident shows a breach of trust. It will affect people’s trust in the police and the standards and culture clearly need to change.
Yvette Cooper, the shadow home secretary, said Carrick should never have been in the police in the first place. Additionally, he said the failure to permanently suspend him from active duty after the first investigation into rape shows little has been known since the March 2021 killing of Sarah Everard by an officer he served.
“This is a horrific and horrific case of the most horrific rape, sexual and violent crime committed against a woman by a serving officer,” Cooper said.
“This is further evidence of the appalling failure of the police investigation process and misconduct, still not addressed by the government,” he said.
Carrick’s offenses spanned from 2003 to 2020 and mostly took place in Hertfordshire, where he lived.
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said he was working with Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to ensure the force was more effective in removing officers who behaved “criminally”.
“Londoners will be appalled that this man has been able to work at the Met for so long and serious questions must be asked about how he could abuse his position as an officer in this appalling way,” Khan said.
Rowley apologized to Carrick’s many victims, saying: “We failed. And I’m sorry. He shouldn’t have been a police officer,” he said in a statement. “We haven’t applied the same ruthlessness to maintaining our own integrity that we normally apply to dealing with criminals.”
He added that he was acting against “those who harm our forces”. “From day one four months ago, I said the Met would be ruthless in cracking down on those who undermined our integrity,” he said.
The Met launched a review of Carrick’s service, conduct and complaint records after he was charged with rape in October 2021, which revealed that he had been in the police system in connection with a number of off-duty incidents before and after he was recruited.
None of the incidents resulted in criminal sanctions against him but included charges of harassment, domestic assault, bad communication and theft.
The Met’s failure to find a pattern in the allegations is reminiscent of similar omissions in the case of Wayne Couzens, the former officer jailed for life in September 2021 for Everard’s murder.
In response to last year’s review of misconduct in the leading police force in England by Baroness Louise Casey, the Met said it has invested millions of pounds and brought in more than 400 additional officers to investigate offenders.
The Met said it is confident Carrick’s behavior has been singled out by new and more robust vetting procedures in place.
Casey said less than 1 percent of officers facing a range of serious misconduct allegations — including corruption, sexual assault and domestic violence — have been fired.