Scotland Yard is urgently probing more than 1,000 officers and staff after the exposure in its ranks of one of Britain’s worst rapists.
Met chief Mark Rowley admitted his force ‘let women and girls down’ by failing to spot multiple signs that David Carrick was a dangerous predator.
The 48-year-old constable had been reported for crimes nine times since 2000. But he kept his job as an armed officer in Scotland Yard’s parliamentary and diplomatic protection unit.
He abused that elite position to coerce terrified victims in a depraved campaign of sexual abuse. Carrick has admitted 49 charges against a dozen women, including 24 counts of rape, stretching from 2003 to 2020.
David Carrick, pictured here in his police uniform, pleaded guilty today to 71 sex attacks on 12 women over the course of nearly 20 years
Met Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, pictured, has apologised to Carrick’s victims and vowed an overhaul of the force’s vetting process
The Met said it was now reviewing 1,633 cases involving 1,071 of its officers and staff who have faced complaints of domestic abuse or sexual offending over the past decade.
When Carrick was first arrested for rape in July 2021, he was placed on restricted duties rather than being suspended. And bosses failed to carry out basic checks into his background that would have revealed a pattern of abusive behaviour.
Carrick was vetted just twice during his two decades in the force, in 2001 and 2017, despite rules stating officers in his position should be reviewed every ten years.
He was known among colleagues as ‘Bastard Dave’ and had a reputation for being ‘mean and cruel’. But over two decades, no colleagues expressed concerns.
His mother Jean last night said a serious complaint was first made about her son when he was just a teenager.
Carrick yesterday entered guilty pleas to six counts of rape and sexual assault against one woman, having admitted 43 offences against 11 women at the Old Bailey last month. Some of the pleas cover multiple offences, meaning he has confessed to more than 80 serious sex crimes.
The cases relating to other Met officers that are being reviewed include those that resulted in no action or no criminal allegations. Sir Mark, who replaced Dame Cressida Dick in September following her resignation amid a string of scandals, said he would write to Home Secretary Suella Braverman and London Mayor Sadiq Khan in March with the review’s findings.
The force has been rocked by the murder of Sarah Everard, by a damning report revealing a toxic culture at Charing Cross police station and by a pair of officers who photographed the bodies of two murdered sisters.
The Met will check potentially dangerous officers against police and national intelligence databases, Sir Mark said. He added in a statement: ‘This man abused women in the most disgusting manner. It is sickening.
‘We’ve let women and girls down and indeed we’ve let Londoners down. The women who suffered and survived this violence have been unimaginably brave.
‘And I do understand also that this will lead to some women across London questioning whether they can trust the Met to keep them safe. We have failed. And I’m sorry. He should not have been a police officer.’
Women’s groups last night said the Met was ‘an institution in crisis’.
Andrea Simon, of the End Violence Against Women coalition, said: ‘It is abundantly clear that an officer whose behaviour gave him the nickname “Dave the Bastard” among colleagues should not have been in the force in the first place.’
Sir Mark has repeatedly said it is ‘crazy’ that he is unable to sack officers when they break the law.
Carrick was first charged with raping a 50-year-old woman in October 2021. This charge was later dropped, but its coverage in the media gave 12 other women the courage to report abuse at his hands.
Carrick, pictured here at the beach, abused and tortured women at his Hertfordshire home
The officer’s abhorrent crimes included rape, dragging his victims into the shower by their hair before sexually assaulting them, keeping them locked in a small cupboard and carrying out sickening sexual acts against their will. An ex-girlfriend said Carrick would handcuff her wrist to her ankle with his police-issue cuffs, then claim he had left the key at the station in London.
Carrick, from Stevenage in Hertfordshire, joined the Met in August 2001, having served for two years in the Army.
The previous year, he was accused of burglary and malicious communications involving an ex-girlfriend but he was not arrested. He passed vetting checks the following year and began working as a response officer in Merton, south-west London.
While still on probation in 2002, Carrick was accused of harassment and assault of a former partner. Again, he was not arrested, and the matter was never referred to the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards.
Carrick was involved in domestic incidents in 2004, 2009 and 2019, a harassment allegation in 2014, and an altercation at a nightclub in 2017 but no further action was taken. Then, in July 2021, Carrick was arrested over a rape complaint. He was not suspended, however, and the victim dropped the complaint. When Carrick was later charged over a separate woman, the first victim was recontacted and Carrick admitted raping her and carrying out a sickening sexual act.
He will be sentenced early next month and faces a long prison sentence.
Carrrick, pictured here in an artists impression in court, boasted to women that he was a police officer
Speaking today Sir Mark said the force had let ‘women and girls down’, admitting his officers had ‘failed’ to investigate allegations made against Carrick as they should have.
In a statement he said: ‘This man abused women in the most disgusting manner. It is sickening. We’ve let women and girls down and indeed we’ve let Londoners down.
‘The women who suffered and survived this violence have been unimaginably brave and courageous in coming forward.
‘And I do understand also that this will lead to some women across London questioning whether they can trust the Met to keep them safe.
‘We have failed. And I’m sorry. He should not have been a police officer.’
The Met commissioner, who started in the role several months ago, added: ‘We haven’t applied the same sense of ruthlessness to guarding our own integrity that we routinely apply to confronting criminals.
‘We failed in two respects.
‘We failed as investigators where we should have been more intrusive and joined the dots on this repeated misogyny over a couple of decades.
‘And as leaders, our mindset should have been more determined to root out such a misogynist.
‘These failures are horrific examples of the systemic failures that concern me and were highlighted by Baroness Casey in her recent review. I do know an apology doesn’t go far enough, but I do think it’s important to acknowledge our failings and for me to say I’m sorry.
‘I apologise to all of David Carrick’s victims. And I also want to say sorry to all of the women across London who feel we’ve let them down.
‘I have promised action. From my first day four months ago, I said that the Met will become ruthless at rooting out those who corrupt our integrity. That’s because our integrity is our foundation.
‘We haven’t guarded this as ferociously as we must and we will do. In the four months to date, we’ve launched a new anti-corruption and abuse command, putting 30 per cent more officers into fighting corruption. And we’ve done public appeals.
‘We’ve raised 250 fresh lines of inquiry, and we’re doing more proactive work against problematic officers than ever before. I’ve also brought in new leadership to lead this work, to reform our integrity.
‘At the end of March, I plan to write to the Home Secretary and the Mayor in an open public letter. And by then, we will also have finished reviewing all of our people, having checked their details against all the police, national intelligence data in the police national database.
‘We’ll have begun a full review of our national vetting process, we’ll have completed Operation Onyx, which is our review of the officers and staff whom we have concerning domestic or sexual incident reports against.
‘And we’ll also have tested new legal routes to dismiss those who fail vetting.
‘We will reform at speed. I promise that to Londoners.’
Carrick, pictured here in his police uniform, demeaned his victims, telling one woman ‘you’re my slave’
Carrick, pictured, admitted to 48 counts of rape when he appeared at court on Monday, January 16
At court earlier today it was revealed Carrick, whose nickname on the force was ‘Ba***ard Dave’, abused and tortured 12 victims, boasting to them ‘I’m a police officer, you can trust me’.
He locked women in a cupboard under the stairs of his Hertfordshire home for hours on end, controlled what they ate and isolated them from their families.
The vile police officer allegedly whipped his victims with belts, dragged them by their hair and demeaned them by saying ‘you’re my slave, you’re my whore’.
The rapist had joined the force in 2001 despite allegations of malicious communications and burglary against an ex-partner just a year before.
While on his probationary period he was accused of assault and harassment against a former partner, but this was not passed onto the Directorate of Professional Standards.
Following this he used his position as a police officer to abuse women, finding some of his victims on dating websites and meeting them in bars where he would gain their trust.
He would appear to be a ‘fun-loving, charming and charismatic’ man, prosecutors said, but this was hiding a dark secret.
In reality, he was ‘very manipulative’ and ‘self-confident almost to the point of being cocky’.
When he was arrested at his Stevenage home in October 2021 accused of raping a woman he met on Tinder, he said: ‘Not again.’
When she arrived at a nearby pub on September 4, 2020, Carrick had ordered a bottle of wine and the woman said she felt ‘pressured’ to drink as he had paid for it.
He told her he was a Met Police firearms officer nicknamed ‘Ba***ard Dave’, showed her his warrant card and boasted of meeting famous people, including Mr Johnson, in the course of his work.
She told police that Carrick called her ‘disgusting’ and referred to himself as a ‘dominant bastard’ while raping her the following morning after she woke up naked in the bath with sick in her hair.
While looking into the allegations against him, investigators found a pattern of behaviour where Carrick abused his position as a police officer.
Carrick, who had a pet snake, exerted control by paying for dinner and drinks, so women would feel indebted to him before isolating them from their friends and family members.
He would tell some of his victims they were not allowed to eat, calling them ‘fat and lazy’, while others were ordered to stay in bed all day so they could have sex all night.
Women were locked in an understairs cupboard in Carrick’s home, said by police to be smaller than a dog crate, for hours without food, or made to clean the house naked.
Carrick urinated over some of his victims and made derogatory comments towards the women, referring to them as his ‘slave’ or a ‘whore’.
Senior Crown Prosecutor Shilpa Shah told a media briefing: ‘The patterns of behaviour that were similar would be things such as the derogatory comments, calling them things like his slave, and making rude remarks all the time.
‘This was also on the phone evidence – he would message them calling them horrid names, saying things such as you’re my slave, you’re a whore. In the actual offending behaviour there were striking similarities
‘For example, that he would urinate in their mouth. That is something that you wouldn’t make up. He would also force them to give him oral sex to the point that they would be gagging.
‘For a couple of the victims he would say they weren’t allowed to eat today, saying you could eat this much of an apple today. He would call them fat and lazy, and say that’s why you’re not allowed to eat.’
Explaining how Carrick allegedly financially abused his victims, Ms Shah said he would make them feeling indebted to him.
She said: ‘He would be the one to pay for them and would not allow them pay. It would be something along the lines of, you’re not using your own money, you use my money, so they would feel indebted to him.’