An officer of the London Metropolitan Police (Met), known as Scotland Yard, admitted today in a London court having committed 49 sexual crimes and rapes against 12 women in at least two decades.

This is David Carrick, 48, who used his position to instill fear in victims and pleaded guilty to a total of 49 crimes against 12 women, including 24 counts of rape over a 17-year period.

Carrick, who met some victims via online dating sites or at social events, was suspended from duty when he was arrested in October 2021.

His crimes spanned from 2003 to 2020 and most occurred in the county of Hertfordshire where he lived.

He admitted to raping nine women, some on multiple occasions over months or years, and many of those attacks involved rapes that reportedly left them with physical injuries.

The London police officer appeared at Southwark Crown Court to plead guilty to four counts of rape, unlawful imprisonment and sexual assault, involving a 40-year-old woman in 2003.

In December, Carrick, who served in the military before joining the Met in 2001, admitted to 43 charges against 11 other women, including 20 rape charges, between March 2004 and September 2020.

Met Deputy Deputy Commissioner Barbara Gray apologized for failing to act sooner as Carrick had been the target of nine incidents, including rape allegations.

“We should have caught his pattern of abusive behavior, and because we didn’t, we missed the opportunity to remove him from the organization,” Gray said.

“We sincerely regret that being able to continue to use his role as a police officer may have prolonged the suffering of his victims,” ​​the deputy commissioner said, speaking to British public broadcaster the BBC.

For his part, Jaswant Narwal, chief prosecutor of Thames and Chiltern Crown Prosecution Service, added that Carrick had a role entrusted to him with a responsibility to protect people, but for 17 years, in his personal life, he had done the exact opposite.

“We are talking about a man who relentlessly degraded, humiliated, sexually assaulted and raped women. Over time, the severity of his crimes increased, believing he would go undetected.”

According to Narwal, the officer met some of his victims through sites like Tinder and Badoo or at social events and used his role as a police officer to gain their trust.

While Inspector Iain Moor, of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire’s Serious Crime Unit, said ‘the large number of offences’ showed Carrick’s prolific and callous nature and added he expected even more victims to come forward .

“While he wasn’t a man who prowled the streets looking for victims, he did spend time developing relationships with women to maintain his appetite for dominance and control, and he debilitated his victims in the most destructive ways.” Moor told reporters outside the courthouse.

Meanwhile, London Mayor Sadiq Khan said he was “absolutely disgusted and shocked” by Carrick’s crimes.

He said “serious questions need to be answered about how he was able to abuse his position as an officer in this horrendous way.”