UK Attorney General Says Sentence for Serial Rapist Police Officer to Be Reviewed as Too ‘Lenient’

An undated police mugshot of David Carrick, a serving Metropolitan Police officer who admitted the last of 49 serious sexual offences at Southwark Crown Court in London on Jan. 16, 2023. Hertfordshire Police

The Attorney General’s Office has confirmed the prison sentence handed out on Tuesday to serial rapist and former police officer David Carrick will be reviewed by the Court of Appeal.

Carrick, 48, was jailed for life with a minimum tariff of 30 years after pleading guilty to 24 counts of rape and 25 other serious sexual offences which were carried out over the space of almost two decades, while he was a serving Metropolitan Police officer.

The offences, against 12 women, occurred between March 2004 and September 2020, but Carrick was only suspended from duty in 2021 and finally sacked by the Met last month.

A spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office said in an email to The Epoch Times, “We can confirm we have received multiple requests relating to David Carrick’s sentence under the Unduly Lenient Sentence Scheme [ULS], the case will of course be considered for referral to the Court of Appeal.”

He added: “The ULS allows prosecutors, victims of crime and their families, and members of the public to ask for certain crown court sentences to be reviewed by the law officers if they think the sentencing judge made a gross error or imposed a sentence outside the range of sentences reasonably available in circumstances of the offence.”

A sketch of David Carrick, seen on a video link from Rampton Hospital, at a hearing at Westminster Magistrates' Court in London in November 2022. PA

The Attorney General’s Office published data in November showing that in the majority of cases referred under the scheme the sentence is increased by the Court of Appeal.

In March 2022 Frankie Smith, the mother of Star Hobson—who was convicted of causing or allowing her death at the hands of her girlfriend Savannah Brockhill—had her sentence increased from eight to 12 years.

Carrick would be in his late 70s before he was eligible for parole and his lawyer, Alisdair Williamson, KC, told Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday his client accepted the sentence would “bring him close to, if not to, the close of his natural life.”

Prosecutor Tom Little, KC, said Carrick did not qualify for a whole-life sentence because he had not killed any of his victims and had pleaded guilty.

Wayne Couzens, another former Metropolitan Police officer who served in the same Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command as Carrick, was given a whole-life sentence in 2021 for the abduction, rape, and murder of Sarah Everard, who was tricked into getting into Couzens’s car in south London in March 2020, on the pretence that she had broken COVID-19 lockdown rules.

Sentencing Carrick, Mrs. Justice Cheema-Grubb, told him: “You behaved as if you were untouchable. You were bold and at times relentless, trusting that no victim would overcome her shame and fear to report you. For nearly two decades you were proved right.”

‘My Function Is to Impose Appropriate Punishment’

In her sentencing remarks (pdf) Cheema-Grubb went on to say: “I have to bear in mind that my function is to impose appropriate punishment and when that is served the Parole Board will determine how to protect the public thereafter. Decades will have passed before that time comes.”

She said: “I conclude that the notional determinate sentence that would provide a just and proportionate punishment is sixty years. To that the guilty plea discount of 20 percent will be applied. It is to your credit that you did not contest a trial. Your decision deserves this recognition because there is no doubt that a court hearing at which evidence is given and challenged provides a particular ordeal for victims.”

Cheema-Grubb said a suicide attempt he made while on remand was borne out of “self-pity,” rather than any remorse.

The full list of charges included 24 counts of rape, nine counts of sexual assault, five counts of assault by penetration, three counts of coercive and controlling behaviour, three counts of false imprisonment, two counts of attempted rape, one count of attempted sexual assault by penetration, one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent, and one count of indecent assault.

Carrick, who joined the Met in 2001 and became an armed officer with the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command in 2009, admitted the last of the offences last month and was immediately fired from the force, which has already apologised to his victims.

It emerged Carrick came to the attention of the police nine times—with him being accused of rape, domestic violence, and harassment—between 2000 and 2021, before any action was taken by the Met.

A previous hearing heard Carrick had bragged to women about how he was an armed officer who protected VIPs including then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley appearing before the London Assembly Police and Crime Committee, to answer questions about the David Carrick case, at City Hall in east London, on Jan. 25, 2023. Yui Mok/PA Media

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, who took over from Dame Cressida Dick last year, is under huge pressure to tackle misogynistic crimes and behaviour within the Metropolitan Police.

Last month Rowley said he planned to write to Home Secretary Suella Braverman and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, at the end of March after “reviewing all of our people, having checked their details against all the police, national intelligence data in the police national database.”

The National Police Chiefs’ Council has since written to all police forces in England and Wales, telling them to check all their staff by the end of March.

‘Finally the Penny Has Dropped’

Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary, Matt Parr, said he believed “finally the penny has dropped” for police chiefs about the importance of weeding out sex offenders and corrupt elements.

Parr told LBC: “In the past I’ve described the Met as being defensive, as being complacent. I don’t see that now under the new leadership, not just of Mark Rowley but of others in the top team. Policing as a whole realises that this can’t go on any longer.”

“Finally the penny has dropped and police leaders have realised that they have got to take much more interest in who gets in and who stays in, and that standards across the board have got to be raised,” added Parr.

PA Media contributed to this report.