Don't tell me that David Carrick's crimes were 'unbelievable'.The problem is victims aren't believed

Marina Hyde

In July 2021, a man pleaded guilty to the murder of Sarah Everard, which he had carried out while serving as a Metropolitan police officer. He had already pleaded guilty to her kidnap and rape. The then Met chief, Cressida Dick, stood on the steps of the Old Bailey and declared: “Everyone in policing feels betrayed.”

And yet, did they? That very same month – the same month – an allegation of rape was made against David Carrick. This allegation led to Carrick’s arrest. But that arrest, for alleged rape – alleged rape – did not even lead to Carrick’s suspension. It led only to his being put on restricted duties.

What are we to conclude from this? That there are so many allegations of rape made every month against Met officers that you honestly just can’t overreact to them all or you’d go mad? Or that the sense of “betrayal” supposedly felt by the Met did not run deep in the most basically meaningful way when it desperately needed to?

How was it possible, in that febrile climate of intense public dismay and anger, which everyone recalls, that the reddest of all flags was not raised when Carrick was accused of rape? How was it possible that, after the murder of Sarah Everard, Carrick was reassessed and judged fit to return to his work as an armed officer? Whatever the answer to those questions, that is what happened.

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Forgive my wishful thinking, but you would think an elite police officer would have something called “a file”, which, when he was accused of an offence as serious as rape, would be “looked at”. In this basic scenario, his superiors would note that the officer in question had been the subject of nine previous serious complaints, eight of them involving women, stretching back almost two decades. They would then think “Hang on a minute …” But that is not what happened.

So now there are more questions. After Carrick’s guilty plea to offences that rank him as one of Britain’s worst sex offenders, “the Met is once again facing questions”, in the inadequate parlance of these things. It feels like we have long passed the point where every question the Met is facing begins with the words: “How on EARTH …”

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jan/17/david-carricks-crimes-victims-police-officer