Ex-police officer David Carrick guilty of raping ex-partner and molesting girl

The former police officer and convicted sex offender David Carrick has been found guilty of further offences including molesting a 12-year-old girl and raping an ex-partner. Carrick, 50, who served as an armed officer in the Metropolitan police, sexually assaulted the child in the late 1980s. It emerged during a trial at the Old Bailey that Carrick had confessed to abusing the child in a note that lay undiscovered for 35 years, which the senior investigating officer said could have changed the course of history had police known about it at the time. He also faced trial for offences committed more than 20 years later, when he repeatedly raped a woman and subjected her to “degrading and humiliating” abuse during the course of a toxic relationship. The offences came to light after he had pleaded guilty in 2022 and 2023 to 71 sexual offences, including 48 rapes against 12 women over 17 years. Carrick, who was handed 36 life sentences in 2023 with a minimum term of 32 years, denied the fresh allegations but declined to give evidence at the Old Bailey. A jury deliberated for five hours to find him guilty of two charges of rape and one of sexual assault and coercive and controlling behaviour towards the woman between 2014 and 2019. Mrs Justice McGowan adjourned sentencing until Thursday. The defendant, formerly of Stevenage in Hertfordshire, was found guilty of five counts of indecent assault relating to the girl in the late 1980s. During the trial, jurors heard how Carrick abused a young girl for about 18 months before she told her mother what was happening. He confessed in a letter recovered from his medical records that was signed “Dave”. He wrote that the girl was “not crazy” and that her account was true, and that he had stopped his behaviour about four months earlier. He wrote: “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.” Det Supt Iain Moor, who led the Hertfordshire police investigation, suggested the course of events would have been very different had Carrick’s offending been picked up in 1990. “It’s very difficult to apply today’s standards back to the 1990s. Obviously, we have multi-agency safeguarding hubs now. We have mechanisms for reports to come in from GPs, from medical professionals,” he said. “But I think had something occurred and the police became aware back in 1990, then it is possible that the offending could have been picked up at that point and then the future looks very different. It’s difficult to say exactly what that path would be, but I’m sure it’d be different to the one that we have today.” In a police interview, his victim described Carrick as “very sly” and manipulative. After she told her mother about the abuse, the matter was “brushed under the carpet like it was nothing”, she said. Giving evidence in court, she told jurors: “When I heard he was a Metropolitan police officer, the words I have always used were: ‘God help anyone with him with a warrant card.’” The second victim met Carrick on a dating website and was aware from the start that he was a police officer. She said he was charming, witty and sarcastic, and acted like “everyone’s best friend”. But during their relationship he became controlling and raped her on numerous occasions. She told jurors she had been traumatised and that Carrick had ruined her life and tainted her views on sex and relationships.