Rapist Met officer David Carrick sent victim picture of himself with police gun

Rapist Metropolitan Police officer David Carrick sent one of his victims a photograph of himself with a work-issue gun, saying: “Remember I am the boss”, a court has heard.

The 48-year-old also used his police baton and handcuffs during attacks on a dozen women over 17 years, a sentencing hearing at Southwark Crown Court was told on Monday.

Prosecutor Tom Little KC said the “systematic” offending was “a catalogue of violent and brutal sexual offences” and it did not matter to Carrick who the victim was.

“The reality was, if he had the opportunity, he would rape them, sexually abuse or assault them and/or humiliate them,” he added.

The prosecutor said the women were “vulnerable”, with some “appreciably older or younger than” Carrick.

The disgraced Pc relied on his “charm” to “beguile and mislead” his victims and would use his “power and control” – in part because of his status as a police officer – to stop them leaving or reporting him, the court also heard.

His crimes were carried out while he served in the Met, which he joined in 2001 before becoming an armed officer with the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command in 2009.

The officer, who guarded sites including embassies and the Houses of Parliament, took training courses, including one on domestic abuse in 2005, the court heard.

Carrick told one woman he met in a London bar in 2003 “he was the safest person that she could be with and that he was a police officer” before taking her back to his nearby flat, Mr Little said.

She “froze” when he put a black handgun to her head and said “you are not going” before repeatedly raping her, he told the court.

During the attack, Carrick put his hands around her throat and said he would be the last thing she saw.

The woman, who was left with bite marks, bruising and clumps of hair missing, 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”.

The court heard Carrick would call her his “slave” and when he asked her to clean his house naked she was “scared” because he was a police officer.

Another woman, who Carrick met on a night out with other officers, described his “heavy drinking” and said he would down two bottles of wine at home following a night shift before returning to work.

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

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

“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 feeling suicidal and “physically and mentally exhausted” after dropping from dress size 14 to a six in months after meeting Carrick on dating app Tinder, the court was told.

He would watch her remotely using cameras installed at his home, cut her off from friends and family members and control how much she ate and when she slept, the prosecutor said.

The prosecutor said the case fell short of meriting a whole-life sentence but called for a life sentence with a fixed minimum term.

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb is expected to sentence Carrick, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, on Tuesday after he previously pleaded guilty to 49 charges relating to 12 women between 2003 and 2020.

They include 24 counts of rape, nine counts of sexual assault, five counts of assault by penetration, three counts of coercive and controlling behaviour, 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.

Some are multiple-incident counts, meaning they relate to at least 85 separate offences, including at least 71 sexual offences and 48 rapes.

He denied a further count of rape in September 2020 relating to a 13th woman, whose allegation triggered the investigation, with the Crown Prosecution Service deciding it was not in the public interest to proceed to trial.

The Met was forced to apologise and admit Carrick should have been rooted out earlier after it emerged he came to police attention over nine incidents – including allegations of rape, domestic violence and harassment – between 2000 and 2021, with all but one of the incidents relating to his behaviour towards women.

Carrick faced no criminal sanctions or misconduct findings and police chiefs across England and Wales have since been asked to have all officers checked against national police databases by the end of March.

He was finally sacked from the force last month after pleading guilty and being unmasked as one of the country’s most prolific sex offenders.

Carrick’s crimes are set to form part of the independent inquiry looking at the murder of Sarah Everard, who was raped and strangled by then-serving Met officer Wayne Couzens in March 2021.