A former Scotland Yard officer unmasked as one of Britain’s worst ever rapists has been convicted of sexually assaulting a schoolgirl when he was a teenager and raping a former partner.
‘Predatory and controlling’ David Carrick, 50, attacked the 12-year-old girl over two years while he was aged between 14 and 16.
And he was a serving police officer when he repeatedly raped the woman between December 2014 and April 2015 then repeatedly forced her to perform sex acts on him in 2019.
In 2023, Carrick was jailed for 30 years after admitting 85 rapes and serious assaults against a dozen women.
But the attacks on the schoolgirl are the first relating to a child. And the convictions relating to the woman represent one of the most striking missed opportunities to unmask Carrick, given officers attended a domestic violence call at his home after he dragged her down the stairs by her hair.
Both victims came forward after Carrick admitted raping and sexually assaulting a dozen women.
David Carrick, 50, is a former Metropolitan Police officer who had previously admitted a large number of sexual offences against 12 women committed over a 17-year period
His trial at the Old Bailey heard he would hold his hand over the schoolgirl’s mouth to stop her screaming as he abused her – sometimes twice a week – over an 18-month period.
On one occasion he is said to have ‘trapped’ her between a chair and a sofa to abuse her.
The girl told her mother that Carrick was abusing her when she was 14 and he admitted the attacks in a letter that was later recovered from his medical records. ‘I know how (the girl) must feel.
That’s why I stopped and promised I would never go near her again and I have kept that promise and I always will,’ he wrote at the time.
‘Sorry to you and especially sorry to (the girl) but she does not have to worry ever again. Please do not try to talk about it.’
More than 20 years later he met the woman via a dating app then pinned her down when she asked him to stop having sex, telling her ‘you are not going anywhere,’ Tom Little KC, prosecuting, told jurors.
‘He then rolled over and apologized and hugged her. She was crying. The defendant then became upset and started crying. They did not talk about it, and they went to sleep.’
The victim was in pain for six weeks afterwards and felt she could not tell anyone what had happened, Mr Little said.
‘Given that he was a Met Police officer it may be obvious and understandable that she took the view that at that point she would not be believed.’
Carrick has been convicted of abusing a 12-year-old girl more than 35 years ago, and raping a woman between 2014 and 2015
The toxic relationship between the couple bore stark similarities with others during which Carrick had already admitted rape and sustained abuse, Mr Little said.
The relationship came to an end after a fight spilled out onto the street in September 2019 when the woman refused to get naked and wait in Carrick’s bed.
‘They were on the stairs, he grabbed her hair and tried to pull her down the stairs, she fought back trying to get him off,’ Mr Little said.
‘At one stage she was holding onto the banister, which got broken. The neighbours came out and separated them and then police arrived.’
Hertfordshire Police answered the call to Carrick’s home in Stevenage and referred the report to Carrick’s force – but he was given no misconduct case to answer and the incident was not properly investigated.
The officer was simply given ‘words of advice in relation to informing his chain of command about off duty incidents.’
He denied five counts of sexual assault relating to the girl in 1989 and 1990 and two charges of rape, one of sexual assault and coercive and controlling behaviour towards the woman between 2014 and 2019
This episode was one of nine occasions since 2000 that Carrick was reported to the police.
Despite this, he maintained a job in the parliamentary protection unit of Britain’s biggest police force and abused his position to coerce his terrified victims in a campaign of sexual abuse.
The scandal rocked British policing and led to the Met urgently probing more than 1,000 of its own officers who had faced complaints of domestic abuse or sexual offending over the past decade.
Carrick declined to give evidence in his trial but when he was interviewed in November 2023 said the schoolgirl was a ‘liar’ and claimed that no sexual abuse occurred.
And he insisted that all sexual activity with the woman was consensual.
He was convicted of five counts of sexual assault relating to the girl in 1989 and 1990 and two charges of rape, one of sexual assault and coercive and controlling behaviour towards the woman between 2014 and 2019.
