London
CNN
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A serving officer in London’s Metropolitan Police has admitted to 49 offenses, together with 24 counts of rape over an 18-year interval, reigniting requires pressing reform in the UK’s largest police pressure.

David Carrick appeared at Southwark Crown Court docket within the British capital Monday to plead responsible to 4 counts of rape, false imprisonment and indecent assault referring to a 40-year-old lady in 2003, the UK’s PA Media information company reported.

On the Outdated Bailey prison court docket in London final month, Carrick admitted to 43 fees in opposition to 11 different girls, together with 20 counts of rape, between March 2004 and September 2020, based on PA.

A sequence of current scandals has make clear what the UK police watchdog known as a tradition of misogyny and racism in London’s police service.

In September 2021, Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens was sentenced to life in jail with out parole for the kidnapping, rape and homicide of Sarah Everard, a case that horrified the nation and sparked debate about violence in opposition to girls.

The Metropolitan Police Service Commissioner Cressida Dick resigned from her publish in 2022, after a damning evaluation by the Unbiased Workplace for Police Conduct issued 15 suggestions “to alter policing observe” within the nation.

London’s Metropolitan Police at the moment are investigating as many as 1,000 intercourse offenses and home abuse claims involving roughly 800 of its officers, the pressure’s Commissioner Mark Rowley admitted Monday.

“That’s 1,000 circumstances to have a look at. A few of these can be issues of no concern in the long run once we take a look at them as a result of it is going to be an argument overheard by neighbors the place inquiries present there’s nothing to be involved about,” Rowley stated in an interview with UK media.

“However in there, I’m unhappy to say, there can be some circumstances the place prior to now we should always have been extra assertive and regarded to throw officers out and we haven’t achieved.”

“We’re going to flip all these stones over, we’re going to come back to the correct conclusions and we’ll be ruthless about rooting out those that corrupt our integrity. You’ve gotten my absolute assurance on that,” he stated.

The UK’s Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) known as Carrick’s case one of many “most stunning” it’s ever seen.

“The size of the degradation Carrick subjected his victims to is not like something I’ve encountered in my 34 years with the Crown Prosecution Service,” CPS Chief Crown Prosecutor Jaswant Narwal stated.

“I commend each single lady who courageously shared their traumatic expertise and enabled us to carry this case to court docket and see justice served,” Narwal continued whereas talking outdoors Southwark Crown Court docket Monday.

The senior investigating officer within the case, Detective Chief Inspector Iain Moor, known as Carrick’s crimes “really stunning.”

“The police service is dedicated to tackling violence in opposition to girls and women in all its types,” Moor stated, including “nobody is above the legislation.”

Assistant Commissioner for the Metropolitan Police Barbara Grey additionally apologized on behalf of the police pressure to all of the victims.

Grey stated Monday that Carrick “ought to have been dismissed from the police service a very long time in the past.”

She later added: “We must always have noticed his sample of abusive conduct and since we didn’t, we missed alternatives to take away him from the group. We’re really sorry that Carrick was in a position to proceed to make use of his position as a police officer to lengthen the struggling of his victims.”

“The length and nature of Carrick’s offending is unprecedented in policing. However regrettably he isn’t the one Met officer to have been charged with severe sexual offences within the current previous,” she stated.

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, stated: “Londoners can be rightly shocked that this man was in a position to work for the Met for thus lengthy and severe questions should be answered about how he was in a position to abuse his place as an officer on this horrendous method.”

Khan commented that work to reform the tradition and requirements of the Met has already began following an interim evaluation and {that a} new, nameless police complaints hotline and anti-corruption staff has lately been established by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley.

“However extra can and should be achieved,” added Khan on Twitter. “It’s important that each one victims of crime trust in our police, and we merely should do extra to lift requirements and empower police leaders to rid the Met and all different police providers of these officers who’re clearly unfit to serve.”

Girls’s rights organizations known as for an inquiry into the Met following Carrick’s case.

UK home abuse charity Refuge known as Carrick’s crimes “totally abhorrent.”

“When a person who has been charged with 49 offences, together with 24 fees of rape, is a serving police officer, how can girls and women presumably be – or really feel – protected,” Refuge tweeted Monday.

UK group Finish Violence Towards Girls additionally posted on Twitter: “That is an establishment in disaster. That Carrick’s sample of egregious behaviour was identified to the Met and so they did not act speaks extra loudly than their empty guarantees to girls.”

“Solidarity with the victims & all who’re feeling the load of the traumatic particulars being reported,” it added.

The British Girls’s Equality Social gathering tweeted: “The Met knew in regards to the allegations for TWENTY years. They did nothing as a serial rapist abused his energy. They’re complicit. Misogyny won’t ever be stripped from the police with out a nationwide, statutory inquiry.”

The Fawcett Society, which campaigns for gender equality and ladies’s rights, stated on Twitter: “Any act of sexual violence is a shame. However it’s notably dangerous when, but once more, these crimes have been perpetrated by an individual who has extra obligations to maintain the general public protected.”