A former Metropolitan Police officer has pleaded guilty to 49 sexual offence charges including 24 counts of rape, in one of the UK’s biggest-ever sex offence cases.
PC David Carrick, an armed officer who served with the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command and worked on the parliamentary estate, admitted to offences spanning 17 years and involving 12 women, although police believe there are many more victims.
He appeared at Southwark Crown Court to plead guilty to 49 offences, including 24 counts of rape, between 2003 and 2020. He will be sentenced over two days from 6 February, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said.
Carrick, wearing a navy suit with a light blue shirt and tie, looked stone-faced as he pleaded guilty to the additional rape, indecent assault and false imprisonment charges. As the judge told him he need to attend his sentencing, Carrick bowed his head slightly and looked near tears as he was led away by two officers.
Carrick, 48, from Hertfordshire, used his position as a police officer to gain the trust of his victims before seeking to control, manipulate, abuse and rape them. He told his victims that it would be “their word against his” suggesting they wouldn’t be believed if they spoke up.
Investigating officers found Carrick had a pattern of coercive and abusive control over his victims “thriving off humiliating them”. He would lock victims in his home in an understairs cupboard “no bigger than a dog crate” for hours where they stayed “intimidated and humiliated” until he decided when they could come out.
One victim told officers that Carrick regularly urinated on her and forced her to drink his urine, while another victim said he whipped her with a belt and sexually assaulted her with sex toys.
Detectives emphasised that Carrick used coercive behaviour to isolate his victims and control what they wore, ate and where they slept. According to interviews and phone evidence from victims, Carrick forced his victims to clean his home naked and controlled the most minute details of their lives including how much of an apple they could eat and how long they could sleep.
Officers said Carrick had a pattern of offending, which included urinating on some victims and forbidding them to speak to their family, sometimes their own children. He would frequently verbally abuse them using insults such as “whore”, calling his victims “fat” and telling them “you are my slave”.
Hertfordshire Police force, which led the investigation with the Metropolitan Police and other forces, said the sheer number of offences “demonstrates his prolific and callous nature”.
Iain Moor, detective chief inspector of Hertfordshire major crime unit, said Carrick “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, who served more than 20 years in the Met, varied his approach to meeting and abusing women. In some cases, he would meet them on a night out and bring them back to his home, in other scenarios he would rape those he was dating or had met on dating apps, including Tinder and Badoo.
“Many of the rape offences came with violence against the victim who would have been physically injured. In some instances, after gaining the victim’s confidence, the levels of sexual violence would escalate and include anal rape, despite the verbal protests of his victims he would continue until sexually gratified,” Mr Moor said.
He added: “It didn’t matter to Carrick who the victim was – a new girlfriend, a long-term partner, his cleaner, a schoolfriend or a stranger – he would still abuse them.”
An investigation was triggered by an October 2021 report in which a victim of Carrick reported that he raped her in September 2020.
He was later charged with rape and after the report was made public, officers said the investigation “snowballed” as multiple complaints were against him.
Over the 14 months since the investigation began, police have reviewed 300 witness statements and around 3-4,000 pages of evidence.
Senior crown prosecutor, Shilpa Shah, who was the first lawyer involved in the case, said piecing the investigation together had been challenging.
“I’ve worked on the rape and serious sexual offences unit for eight years and this is one of the most traumatic and harrowing cases I’ve had to deal with. On a personal level, it’s been challenging hearing the victims’ accounts. These women have been so brave coming forward and that’s something that they should be commended for,” Ms Shah said.
