David Carrick: Former Merton Met officer jailed for 30 years

Met officer David Carrick, one of Britain’s worst sex offenders, has been jailed for 30 years after admitting 49 criminal charges over a nearly two-decade period.

The 48-year-old, whose beat used to include Merton, admitted 24 counts of rape against 12 women over an 18-year period, two of which were fellow serving police officers.

Mrs Justice Cheema Grubb handed down the sentence today at Southwark Crown Court, saying Carrick led an “unrestrained campaign of rape against women”.

Yesterday, the court heard the full extent of Carrick’s campaign of torture and abuse, as prosecutor Tom Little KC went through the grim crimes he inflicted on his victims.

His victims detailed how Carrick locked them in a cupboard, urinated on them in the shower, spied on them using cameras hidden in his house and held a gun to the head of one victim before he raped her.

Both the prosecution and defence lawyers said his offences fell short of a whole-life sentence, but called for a life sentence with a minimum term.

Images of the cupboard where Carrick shut one of his victims were released during the sentencing.

The court heard how Carrick hit a victim with a whip and would shut her in a small cupboard as punishment while “whistling at her as if she was a dog”.

“He told her that she belonged to him and that she must obey him,” said the prosecutor.

“He threatened her with his police baton and sent her a photograph of his work-issue firearm, saying, ‘Remember I am the boss’.”

Another woman was left with bite marks, bruising and clumps of hair missing and told an A&E nurse she had been raped by a police officer, the court heard, but she was told she needed to be “ready” if she was going to complain and “she might be better to try to put it behind her and move on”.

Women Against Rape (WAR) – a campaign group which has been protesting outside Southwark Crown Court during Carrick’s sentencing – has sent a list of demands to Met Commissioner Mark Rowley which includes DNA and finger print vetting of officers, guilty officers stripped of pensions and making rape or sexual violence a priority for investigations.

Without their demands being met, the group said the Met would never change.

WAR campaigner Lisa Longstaff said: “This has been building up for a long time. Everyone we speak to says they are scared of the police. It’s not new but the scale and how blatant it is, is shocking.

“Who knows how many more women were attacked and how many have got away with it? The Met have said it’s just a few bad apples for so long. This changes everything.”

Carrick initially worked as a response officer in Merton and in 2009 he transferred to what is now the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command, where he remained until his arrest and suspension in October 2021.

Assistant Met Commissioner Barbara Gray apologised to the victims for not identifying Carrick’s criminality sooner.

She said: “I am truly sorry for the harm and devastation he has caused [the victims].

“We let them down and we failed to identify a man in the ranks of the Metropolitan Police Service who carried out the most awful offences.”

Pictured top: David Carrick left, and the cupboard under the stairs in which he kept one of his victims (Picture: Hertfordshire Constabulary)