David Carrick’s victims weren’t just let down by one man – but by the entire police force

Editorial: Commissioner Rowley and his counterparts need to get on with the job of sacking corrupt officers – and the home secretary needs to turn some of her authoritarian zeal to helping them do it

More reform is essential, and the Met Police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, has admitted as much (PA)

Police constable David Carrick of the Metropolitan Police Service admitted – and has been found guilty of – 49 serious charges (including 24 counts of rape) for crimes committed over an 18-year period. It is scarcely comprehensible that such an individual should have been able to go around destroying lives with impunity for so long, but as a serving police officer? Doubly appalling.

As is apparent from the details of the trial, he used a certain spurious charm to lure his victims, but he was greatly assisted by the misplaced trust placed in the police by his female victims. He had a taste for degrading and humiliating the women he befriended. He then effectively enslaved them – indeed, caged and starved them – and called them his slaves. It was betrayal and cruelty on an industrial scale. Eventually 12 brave women came forward. How many more Carricks or PC Wayne Couzens, or paler versions, remain in action?

How did such a depraved individual end up in the police, and how did it come to be that he was seemingly free to prey on women for two decades? These are questions that the Metropolitan Police have yet to answer.