Four officers and a police staff member will face disciplinary proceedings after investigations into the handling of allegations against serial rapist David Carrick.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) had been investigating four claims made against Carrick between 2002 and 2021 into what actions were taken by the Metropolitan Police while he was a serving officer at the force.
Today, it said two officers, one now serving with City of London Police, a detective sergeant, detective inspector, and a police staff member should face misconduct hearings.Â
Two others, who were inspectors at the time, would have also faced disciplinary meetings if they had not retired.
Meanwhile, two chief inspectors will be subject to the reflective review process after failing to investigate an allegation of assault made by Carrick’s former partner in 2019. Â
Carrick was eventually arrested in October 2021 and jailed in February 2023.
Four officers and a police staff member will face disciplinary proceedings after investigations into the handling of allegations against serial rapist David Carrick (pictured)
In February 2023, Carrick was sentenced to a minimum term of 30 years in prison for 49 violent and sexual offences, including 24 counts of rapeÂ
The police complaints watchdog said there had been ‘several missed opportunities to pursue misconduct investigations’ against the sex predator which could have seen Carrick sacked before he was arrested.Â
The four officers and staff member will also face misconduct meetings for alleged breaches of the police standards of professional behaviour, all relating to failing to progress misconduct investigations against Carrick.
Those facing disciplinary proceedings all worked in the Met’s Directorate of Professional Standards (DPS) at the time.
IOPC regional director Mel Palmer said: ‘Our thoughts continue to be with all of the women who were victims of this serial predator.
‘Our investigations into alleged failures to investigate reports made against David Carrick were comprehensive and identified several missed opportunities to pursue misconduct investigations against him.
‘In all cases we identified that officers failed to properly explore, investigate or oversee the misconduct investigations against Carrick, who never faced any disciplinary proceedings despite being the subject of serious criminal allegations on multiple occasions.
Carrick was a serving police officer at the time of all of the offences and was working for the Met at the time of his arrest
‘Had these matters been progressed appropriately, Carrick may have potentially faced gross misconduct proceedings and been dismissed from the force well before he was eventually arrested.
‘Four officers and a member of police staff will now face disciplinary proceedings, including one officer who will face a gross misconduct hearing, while two more former officers would have faced disciplinary meetings had they not retired from the force.’
The IOPC announced in July last year that it was launching investigations into the way the Met handled complaints made in 2002, 2016, 2019 and 2021 under a rarely used power of initiative.Â
In February 2023, Carrick was sentenced to a minimum term of 30 years in prison for 49 violent and sexual offences, including 24 counts of rape.Â
David Tippets, a former police sergeant who is now an inspector, and Pc Emma Fisher were given final written warnings in June for failing to adequately investigate an allegation of abuse by Carrick.Â
The investigation began in July last year after Wiltshire Police made a referral over a report from 2016 which had appeared not to have been investigated appropriately.
A woman called Wiltshire Police in January 2016 to report that Carrick, who was first arrested in 2021, had abused another female. She wanted Carrick, a serving Metropolitan Police Service officer, investigated.
David Carrick, 48, became one of the UK’s worst sex offenders after admitting to 85 rapes and serious sexual assaults before sentencing in FebruaryÂ
The Met has been accused of missing repeated opportunities to catch the depraved rapist
Carrick’s trial heard how he repeatedly and brutally raped his victims and engaged in violence and coercive controlÂ
Pc Fisher was assigned to investigate the matter and after speaking in person to the woman who made the report, Pc Fisher requested the case be closed and her supervisor, Sgt Tippetts, agreed.
Carrick’s trial heard how he repeatedly and brutally raped his victims and made use of violence and coercive control, including locking one women in a tiny cupboard as a punishment, strangulation, threatening victims with a gun, urinating on one victim and using women as ‘sex slaves’.
Carrick’s victims bravely spoke out about their horrifying ordeals at his hands.
One woman told how he told her he was ‘the safest person’ she could be with when he met her in order to lure her to his home in 2003, before grabbing her by the throat and holding a gun to her head before raping her.
While choking the woman he told her he was going to be the last thing she saw.
After raping the victim multiple times, he sat with her in the sitting room and talked to her ‘as if nothing had happened’.
She sustained external and internal injuries including bite marks to the neck and collar bone, bruising to the breasts, thighs, buttocks, wrists and ankles, where she had been pinned down and dragged on the floor.
She had clumps of hair missing and was bleeding in several places.
The court heard Carrick installed cameras throughout his flat so that he could monitor the women in his life around the clock, even while at work.
He would send his victims photographs of him in police uniform and holding police firearms, once doing this and writing: ‘Remember I am the boss.’
Two of the women were kept in a small cupboard under the stairs at Carrick’s home – one 10 times – while some were urinated on or attacked with a belt, the court was told.
