The Met could have stopped police rapist David
Carrick – how can it have failed yet again?
Sue Fish
During Carrick’s 20 years of service, chances to
investigate him were repeatedly missed. Instead, he was promoted
Sue Fish is
a former chief constable of Nottinghamshire
Mon 16 Jan
2023 17.24 GMT
I have spent years calling out misogyny and sexual
violence within the police service, but the story of David Carrick left me
speechless.
Carrick has
served in the Met for 20 years, and is now an armed officer in the
parliamentary and diplomatic protection command – an elite, sought-after job
that requires extensive vetting. And yet he admitted on Monday to 49 counts of
sexual offences against 12 women over 17 years, including 24 counts of rape and
three of false imprisonment. The physical and verbal abuse the women endured
was sickening – he forced some to stay in a cramped cupboard in his house for
hours at a time, calling one his “slave”.
Not only
did that vetting process fail, but the force was told about eight alleged
attacks on or clashes with women by Carrick between 2000 and 2021 and took no
action, after the women involved withdrew from investigations or refused to
make formal complaints. His job helped him to dominate and frighten his
victims: prosecutors said that Carrick told women they would not be believed
because he was a police officer. Disgusting doesn’t begin to cover it.
Red flags
were ignored again and again. One of the allegations was made during his
probation period, but he passed. In 2011, Carrick should have had his
once-a-decade vetting refresher, but this was somehow delayed for six years. In
2017, he was given enhanced counter-terrorism vetting, and passed. This all
raises huge questions about what information was shared at those vettings, and
what understanding there was of how predatory sex offenders operate.
What’s the
point of these procedures if they can’t stop someone like Carrick? Waving
through those who exhibit this risky and criminal behaviour makes them feel
invincible – that they can continue at will. And tragically, awfully, Carrick
did just that.
DCI Iain
Moor of Hertfordshire police, who led the investigation that finally brought
Carrick to justice, has said it was “unbelievable” that these crimes could have
been carried out by a serving police officer. I have to disagree. It’s
appalling and sickening, but it’s far from unbelievable – just look at the
serving Met officer who murdered Sarah Everard. The narrative of an “outlier”,
“bad apple”, a “wrong’un” passes over the fact that there is something
fundamentally wrong within the institution. I was abused by fellow officers
during my time in the force – it isn’t a safe place to be. Who’s going to
believe you if you make a report? And if police are abusing their position to
exploit those they are charged to protect, how can the institution be trusted?
The
challenge for policing is to change how they think about their colleagues,
about how predatory sex offenders operate, and about victims. Police have got
to start learning about what it is to be a victim of sexual offences, what it
is to be a victim of domestic abuse when the perpetrator is a police officer –
such as understanding that if victims don’t pursue complaints, that isn’t
necessarily because the offence didn’t happen; that there may have been a power
dynamic at play. They’ve got to alter their mindset.
The Met has
said it is now reviewing every past claim of domestic abuse or sexual offence
against about 1,000 of the Met’s 45,000 officers and staff, but changing the
culture also means recruiting people differently, training people differently,
vetting people differently, and holding people to account differently – which
may well mean sacking people much more readily. And when things go wrong, they
must be properly investigated – which may well mean externally, rather than
from within the force.
I found
that many of those who serve in the military and then come to the police, as
Carrick did, are used to a very male-dominated, macho – and, I would argue –
misogynistic culture, and may then seek out a role that gives them power,
status, and allows that misogynistic behaviour to carry on unchecked. Policing
needs to change those attitudes through higher professional standards.
Carrick’s
actions would have been just as appalling from a new recruit as from one with
20 years’ service, but what makes this story so particularly awful is that
policing had the chance to do something about it – and turned not just one
blind eye over the years but many, utterly failing those victims. And that’s
why women don’t trust the police.
Sue Fish is
a former police officer who served as Nottinghamshire’s chief constable from
2016 to 2017. As told to Barbara Speed
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