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London Ex-Cop Pleads Guilty To 49 Sexual Assault And Abuse Charges
David Carrick, who previously served with the London Metropolitan Police, pleaded guilty this week to several more counts of sexual assault and abuse offenses going back nearly 20 years.
A former officer with the London Metropolitan Police has pleaded guilty to a total of 49 charges related to rape and sexual assault.
David Carrick, 47, pleaded guilty on Monday to false imprisonment, indecent assault and four counts of rape, according to a press release from his former employer. He had already pleaded guilty on Dec. 14 to 43 charges in the case.
In total, Carrick has now pleaded guilty to 49 charges involving 12 women between 2003 and 2020, the Hertfordshire Constabulary announced in its own press release. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Feb. 6 for: 24 counts of rape; nine counts of sexual assault; five counts of assault by penetration; three counts of coercive and controlling behavior; three counts of false imprisonment; two counts of attempted rape; one count of attempted sexual assault by penetration; one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent; and one count of indecent assault.
(British law defines rape as a penetrative attack committed by a person with a penis, assault by penetration as any coercive penetrative act with an object or other body part and sexual assault as any other coercive sexual touching. Prior to 2004, the charge of indecent assault covered the acts now defined as sexual assault.)
“The details of David Carrick’s crimes are truly shocking, and I suspect many will be appalled and sickened by his actions," Hertfordshire Detective Chief Inspector Iain Moor said in a statement. "But I hope his victims, and the public more widely, are reassured that no-one is above the law and that the police service will relentlessly pursue those offenders who target women in this way.”
Carrick was arrested by the Hertfordshire police in Oct. 2021 and suspended. His pay as a London cop was stopped after his guilty pleas on Dec. 14 and he was fired on Tuesday, the Met said.
However, complaints about Carrick's behavior toward women date back to at least 2000 — a year before he was hired as a police officer — and 2002, when he was still a probationary hire, The Guardian reported. In 2000, after a break-up, he was accused of burglarizing his ex's place and engaging in "malicious communications." He was not arrested and passed the Metropolitan Police's background check the following year despite the allegations. (The Met says current applicants with such allegations in their background would likely not pass a background check today.)
In 2002, he was accused of harassment and assault against another ex-partner — allegations which, according to The Guardian, included biting the woman's shoulder hard enough to leave wounds. He was again not prosecuted in the case and, despite being in his probationary period, the alleged incident was not reported to the Directorate of Professional Standards.
The first incident in which Carrick has now pleaded guilty occurred in 2003, according to an earlier press release from the Hertfordshire Constabulary. He's charged with false imprisonment, six counts of rape, and indecent assault against that victim.
In 2004, he was again accused of a domestic incident. He was not charged in that case and he was not investigated by his employer. He has since been charged with one count of rape in 2004, according to the constabulary, but it not clear whether there are two separate victims in these incidents.
He was charged with three counts of raping another victim between 2008 and 2009, the police previously announced.
In 2009, he was given a license to carry a firearm (which most Met officers do not have) and promoted to the parliamentary and diplomatic protection command, which guards foreign embassies, the Prime Minister and the Houses of Parliament. He's since been charged with another attempted rape that year. Police in his home of Hertfordshire that year also responded to a third-party report of domestic violence against him, though it's unclear whether that was before or after his promotion. He was not arrested or charged in the case and, though Hertfordshire informed the Met of the incident, no formal complaint was lodged in his employer's system.
There are no reports of other incidents until 2015, when he allegedly raped another woman who has since reported it.
In 2016, according to the Met, Carrick was accused of harassment in Hampshire, but again was not arrested and, in 2017, he was kicked out of a club and "spoken to" by local police in Reading for being too drunk. He was not arrested and the incident was not reported to his employer.
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Later in 2017, Carrick passed a second background check at the Met despite the 2002, 2004 and 2009 domestic violence allegations and the 2016 harassment allegation of which his employer was aware.
Police say he committed three rapes and four sexual assaults between 2008 and 2019.
In September 2019, a neighbor called police after several witnessed him choking a naked, screaming woman in his yard, The Guardian reported. The police responded but he was not arrested because the woman declined to pursue charges, according to the paper and the Met. Carrick's employer was, again, informed of this incident "and Carrick was given words of advice in relation to informing his chain of command about off duty incidents." He was not investigated as a result of the allegation.
In July 2021, Carrick was arrested by the Hertfordshire police for rape and the Met placed him on restricted duties and took away his gun. When the woman later declined to proceed with the allegations, the Met gave him back his gun and restored his clearance, The Guardian reported, though the Met claims it did not send Carrick back to duties at Parliament or Downing Street.
Following a different Met officer's conviction for rape and murder, another woman came forward on Oct. 1, 2021 and pressed charges against Carrick, telling police he had anally raped her after a Tinder date in 2000, the paper reported. He was arrested on Oct. 2.
The woman who reported him in July 2021 ultimately returned to police and Carrick subsequently pleaded guilty in her rape.
He continued being paid by the Met until his guilty pleas last month.
“We should have spotted his pattern of abusive behavior and because we didn’t, we missed opportunities to remove him from the organization" Met Assistant Commissioner Barbara Gray said in a statement. “We are truly sorry that Carrick was able to continue to use his role as a police officer to prolong the suffering of his victims."
"He used the fact he was a police officer to control and coerce his victims," she added. "We know they felt unable to come forward sooner because he told them they would not be believed."
One victim told The Guardian that, after she attempted to end their relationship, he threatened to plant drugs in her car and call his fellow officers.
“He told me: ‘I’ll put drugs in your car and call the police. Who are they going to believe?’” she said.
"He should not have been a police officer," Met Commissioner Mark Rowley said in a statement. "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."
