David Carrick: Met Police officer who was unmasked as serial rapist jailed – as court hears he tried to kill himself ‘out of self pity’

Published

3 years ago

February 7, 2023

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An “evil” police officer who was unmasked as one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders has been jailed for at least 30 years after being handed 36 life sentences.

David Carrick, 48, was branded a “monster” who carried out a “catalogue of violent and brutal sexual offences” against 12 women over nearly two decades.

Carrick was silent and impassive as the sentence was handed down.

The judge Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said she was satisfied that life sentences were required in this case.

She said she agreed with the prosecution that the case does not merit a whole-life order, despite the “upmost seriousness” of the offending.

A whole-life order would have meant he would never have been eligible for parole. Carrick’s sentence means he cannot apply for parole until he has served at least 30 years in prison.

Victims described in court how they were raped, controlled and degraded by Carrick, who they feared was too “powerful” to be reported for his crimes.

Live updates from court as rapist policeman Carrick is sentenced

Carrick suicide attempt was ‘self-pitying reaction to court proceedings’

Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said during sentencing that Carrick was moved to a hospital while in custody after carrying out a “committed attempt” to kill himself.

The judge said the suicide attempt was a “self-pitying reaction” to the “shame” Carrick felt from the court proceedings against him.

The former Metropolitan Police officer had pleaded guilty to 49 charges – including 24 counts of rape – covering a total of 85 offences.

During his sentencing at Southwark Crown Court, Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said: “These convictions represent a spectacular downfall for a man charged with upholding the law and empowered to do so even to the extent of being authorised to bear a firearm in the execution of his duty.

“Behind a public appearance of propriety and trustworthiness, you took monstrous advantage of women drawn into intimate relationships with you.

“You brazenly raped and sexually assaulted many women, some you barely knew. You behaved as if you were untouchable. You were bold and at times relentless, trusting that no victim would overcome her shame and fear to report you.”

The judge went on to speak about a serving Metropolitan Police officer who was raped by Carrick but felt she couldn’t report it to her colleagues.

She said: “The police officer you raped in 2004 had herself been trained to deal sensitively with complainants, but she didn’t report you until 2021. The reason was shame and she didn’t want to put herself through reporting an anal rape.

“She described this as a hypocritical view, but she didn’t feel brave enough to do it, so she told herself to toughen up and move on.”

The judge also said Carrick poses a “high risk of serious sexual harm” to the public.

“I’m sure you present a grave danger to women who might be persuaded to be alone with you,” she added.

Carrick was ‘abused by stepfather’

The judge also revealed how Carrick had spoken to a probation officer about suffering “childhood trauma”.

Carrick grew up with parents “who drank to excess” and he had told of being abused by his stepfather, the court heard.

“As an adult you abused alcohol yourself,” the judge told Carrick.

She added Carrick caused “irretrievable devastation” in the lives of the women he raped and abused.

“Each one is traumatised,” she said.

The judge added one of Carrick’s victim described “encountering evil”.

Denial, hatred and betrayal were common emotions felt by the victims, she added.

“You have shaped their lives,” the judge told the court.

“Some have damaged mental health. They don’t trust the police.

“You have not expressed remorse or regret for what you have done.”

The former Met Police officer looked at the floor in the dock throughout the judge’s remarks.

Detective Inspector Iain Moor, a senior officer at Hertfordshire Police, the force which investigated Carrick, said outside court he is “extremely relieved” a “serious and prolific sex offender is now going to be behind bars for a very long time”.

Mr Moor praised the bravery of victims “who were prepared to relive their ordeals and face him in court”.

He said the force has set up a “special reporting portal” to allow people to continue to share information about Carrick.

“If anyone else thinks they have been a victim, we still want to hear from you and we will support you,” he added.

“As a serving police officer he has brought shame on the profession and was not fit to wear the uniform.”

Police forced to apologise over Carrick’s crimes

His case is the latest in a spate of scandals at the Met Police, including the murder of Sarah Everard by then-serving officer Wayne Couzens.

The force was forced to apologise and admit Carrick should have been rooted out earlier after it emerged he came to police attention over nine incidents before he was prosecuted. They included allegations of rape, domestic violence and harassment between 2000 and 2021.

All of Carrick’s admitted crimes occurred while he was working for the Met Police.

Known by colleagues as “B*****d Dave”, he joined the force in 2001 before becoming an armed officer with the parliamentary and diplomatic protection command in 2009, guarding the Houses of Parliament and embassy sites.

Carrick, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, was sacked by the Met Police after his guilty pleas.

Officer whipped and urinated on victims

Over a two-day sentencing hearing, the court heard that Carrick held a gun to a woman’s head before repeatedly raping her and threatened to use his police baton on another victim.

Some women were urinated on, locked naked in a cupboard under the stairs in Carrick’s home, whipped and watched remotely through cameras while he was at work.

He also sent a victim a photograph of himself with a work-issue gun, saying: “Remember I am the boss.”

Prosecutor Tom Little KC said: “The reality was that it did not matter who the victim was … he would rape them, sexually abuse or assault them and humiliate them.”

The court heard one victim – Darciane Nunes Da Silva – who was raped and sexually assaulted by Carrick had waived her right to anonymity.

In a series of victim impact statements read by the prosecutor, women spoke of the trauma they had suffered from Carrick’s crimes – including some who were left suicidal – and how the case had damaged their trust in police.

Carrick told victim: ‘I am the law’

One woman said: “I don’t trust the police any more. If anything went wrong I don’t know whether I would want to call the police as I’d worry that they would send a male officer like him.

“The thought of being alone with a male officer makes me very anxious.”

Another victim said she had been “too frightened” to report Carrick’s crimes after he told her “he was the police, he was the law, and he owned me”.

Meanwhile, the woman who was raped in Carrick’s home after he pointed a gun at her head said she felt she had “encountered evil”.

“I honestly thought he was going to kill me that night,” she added.

The court heard Carrick relied on his “charm” to “beguile and mislead” his victims, then used his “power and control” to stop them leaving or reporting him.

‘He cannot ask for mercy’

One victim described the police constable as “acting like a monster” and said he would call her “his slave”, asking her to take her clothes off while cleaning his house.

Carrick told another victim he would pay her £1,000 a month to be his “slut”, the court heard.

One woman, who was repeatedly raped by Carrick, told a friend that “nobody would believe her” if she reported the attacks because he “was a police officer and very powerful”.

Alisdair Williamson KC, defending, said Carrick “accepts full responsibility for what he has done”.

He pointed out that one victim had noted that “something had profoundly damaged this man”, saying Carrick was “testament” to how “the abused” can become “the abuser”.

“He cannot ask for mercy and does not,” the barrister said.

UK

‘I’m deprived of my UK citizenship but I’m not a convicted terrorist’

Published

3 hours ago

August 24, 2025

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'I'm deprived of my UK citizenship but I'm not a convicted terrorist'

Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) went from a jihadist movement once aligned to al Qaeda to forming the official government of Syria.

It was a monumental transformation for them, their country and the wider Middle East.

But potentially too for British people who went to Syria – and who were stripped of their citizenship as a result, on the grounds of national security.

Tauqir Sharif, better known as Tox, went to Syria in 2012 as an aid worker. He was accused of being part of a group affiliated with al Qaeda, which he denies, and the then-home secretary Amber Rudd deprived him of his British citizenship in 2017.

“As of now, I am deprived of my UK citizenship but I’m not a convicted terrorist – and the reason for that is because we refused, we boycotted, the SIAC [Special Immigration Appeals Commission] secret courts, which don’t allow you to see any of the evidence presented against you,” he said.

“And one of the things that I always called for was, look, put me in front of a jury, let’s have an open hearing.”

HTS is still a proscribed terrorist organisation but the British government has now established relations with it.

Foreign Secretary David Lammy travelled to Damascus to meet the jihadist-turned-Syrian interim president – the man who swapped his nom de guerre of al Jolani for Ahmed al Sharaa.

If the UK government takes HTS off the terror list, what does that mean for those who lost their citizenship after being accused of being part of it?

People who joined HTS are only a subset among the scores of people who have had their citizenship revoked – a tool the UK government has been quick to use.

According to a report by the Parliamentary Joint Human Rights Committee, the UK “uses deprivation of citizenship orders more than almost any country in the world”.

The peak of that was in 2017, and mainly in relation to Syria – especially in the case of people joining Islamic State, perhaps most famously Shamima Begum.

And because people cannot be made entirely stateless, and need to have a second nationality, or be potentially eligible for one, there are worries of racism in who the orders apply to.

Countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh offer dual nationality, whereas other nations do not. In 2022, the Institute of Race Relations said “the vast majority of those deprived are Muslim men with South Asian or Middle Eastern/North African heritage”.

Legal grey areas

Sky News submitted Freedom of Information requests to the Home Office asking for a breakdown of second nationalities of those deprived of citizenship, but was refused twice on national security grounds.

The independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, told Sky News there are issues around transparency.

“I do think there is a problem when you have people whose relationship with the country that they’re left with is really technical and they may never have realised that they had that citizenship before and may never gone to that country,” he said.

“Me and my predecessors have all said, owing to how frequently this power is used, it should be something that the independent reviewer should have the power to review. I asked, my predecessor asked, we’ve both been told no, so I agree there’s a lack of transparency.”

No automatic reversal

Even if the government does remove HTS from the terror list, it would not automatically invalidate decisions to deprive people of their citizenship.

Macer Gifford gave up a career as a banker in London to join the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) as a foreign volunteer between 2015 and 2017.

He told Sky News that decisions “made years ago in the interest of the British public have to remain”.

“We can’t sort of go through previous cases nitpicking through it, wasting time and money to bring it up to date,” he added.

“We can’t be naive because the intent to go out, the decision to go in itself is a huge decision for them. So it shows commitment when they’re there, they then, if they take an active participation in the organisations that they’ve been accused of joining, again, that involves training and perseverance and dedication to the cause.”

But those born and raised in Britain, who joined the same cause, and lost their citizenship as a result, might reasonably ask why that should remain the case.

UK

Criminals could be banned from pubs and sports grounds under new plans

Published

3 hours ago

August 24, 2025

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Criminals could be banned from pubs and sports grounds under new plans

Criminals face being banned from pubs, sports grounds and concerts under new government plans to give judges powers to pass tougher community sentences.

The new measures, which would apply to people in England and Wales, “should remind all offenders that, under this government, crime does not pay”, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood said.

Offenders’ freedom could also be curtailed with limits on driving, travel bans and restriction zones confining them to specific areas, the government said.

Similar measures could also apply to prisoners let out on licence, while drug testing would be expanded to include all those released, rather than just those with a history of substance misuse.

While judges are currently able to impose limited bans for specific crimes, such as football bans for crimes committed inside a stadium on match day, the new measures would allow for such bans to be handed down for any offence.

The justice secretary said: “When criminals break society’s rules, they must be punished.

“Those serving their sentences in the community must have their freedom restricted there too.

“These new punishments should remind all offenders that, under this government, crime does not pay.

“Rightly, the public expect the government to do everything in its power to keep Britain safe, and that’s what we’re doing.”

The proposals are part of the Labour government’s efforts to tackle overcrowding in prisons.

Back in June, it emerged that prisoners were to be transferred to lower security jails in an effort to ease overcrowding, as part of a new measure quietly unveiled by the government.

Sky News reported earlier this month how the prison system was close to collapse on a number of occasions between autumn 2023 and summer 2024, according to an independent review by former chief inspector of prisons, Dame Anne Owers.

The report said there was a systemic problem which has led to recurring prison capacity crises over the last 18 years.

UK

Police separate anti-immigration and anti-racism protesters across the country

Published

15 hours ago

August 23, 2025

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Police separate anti-immigration and anti-racism protesters across the country

Protesters have gathered across the country as groups demonstrated against asylum seeker housing and were met by anti-racism campaigners.

Demonstrations under the Abolish Asylum System slogan were held in England, Scotland and Wales, including in Bristol, Exeter, Tamworth, Cannock, Aberdeen, Mold, Perth, Nuneaton, Liverpool, Wakefield, Newcastle, Horley and Canary Wharf.

Counter-protests were also organised by campaign group Stand Up to Racism.

In Bristol, mounted police separated the two groups in the Castle Park, with officers scuffling with protesters.

Police kept around 200 anti-immigration protesters draped in English flags away from roughly 50 Stand Up to Racism protesters in Horley, Surrey.

One man, wearing a West Ham United football shirt, was held by police as he yelled: “You’re not welcome here, you’re not welcome here, you’re not welcome here” at anti-racism protesters.

Anti-immigration protesters also chanted: “Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy Robinson” in support of the far-right activist, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

The anti-racism protesters chanted “say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here” and held signs calling for solidarity and to “stop deportations”.

The Stand Up to Racism protesters were shepherded into a smaller area as they continued to chant: “No hate, no fear, refugees are welcome here”, which was met with “No they’re f****** not” from the other side of the street.

In Perth, protesters gathered outside the Radisson Hotel.

The anti-migration protesters held up signs with slogans such as “Perth is full – empty the hotels” and “get them out”.

Stand Up to Racism Scotland said it had achieved “victory” in Perth, with more than 200 gathering to oppose the Abolish Asylum System demonstration.

In Liverpool, a dispersal order was issued to try and contain the protests.

Saturday’s events come amid continued tension around the use of the hotels for asylum seekers.

Regular protests had been held outside the Bell Hotel in Epping, Essex, which started after an asylum seeker housed there was charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl on 10 July.

Hadush Gerberslasie Kebatu, 38, was charged with trying to kiss a teenage girl and denies the allegations. He is due to stand trial later this month.

In the wake of those protests, Epping Forest District Council sought and won an interim High Court injunction to stop migrants from being accommodated there – a decision which the government is seeking permission to appeal.