Hertfordshire PoliceA “predatory and controlling” former police officer is accused of repeatedly molesting a girl and raping a woman, a court has heard.
David Carrick, 50, from Stevenage, is said to have carried out the offences against the girl in the late 1980s, when she was aged between 12 and 14 and he was still a teenager.
More than 20 years later, he raped a woman “on a number of occasions” as part of their “toxic relationship” and subjected her to a sex act which she did not consent to, jurors at the Old Bailey were told.
Mr Carrick has denied several charges of sexual assault, rape and coercive and controlling behaviour.
The prosecutor, Tom Little KC, told jurors that Mr Carrick was already a convicted sex offender.
In 2022 and 2023 Mr Carrick pleaded guilty to a “large number” of sexual and other offences relating to a number of women, nearly all of whom he knew, jurors heard.
They included 71 instances of sexual violence against 12 different women over a period spanning 17 years, the court heard.
Opening Mr Carrick’s trial on Tuesday, Mr Little said: “This case that you are now trying is primarily about sexual offending committed many years apart by this defendant.
“But in respect of all the offending, whenever it was committed, the defendant was, we say, very predatory and controlling.
“This was not isolated offending but part of a pattern which the defendant perpetrated over many years.”
Mr Little added: “It is also relevant for you to know that he was at the time of that relationship, as he was for many years, a Metropolitan Police officer.”
Mr Carrick has previously served with the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command within the Metropolitan Police.
Outlining the new allegations, Mr Little said the first complainant in the trial was aged about 12 when she was repeatedly sexually assaulted.
When she was aged 14, the girl allegedly told her mother what was going on.
The defendant allegedly made admissions about what he had done to the girl in a letter recovered from his medical records and signed “Dave”.
In it, Mr Carrick wrote the girl was “not crazy” and what she had said was “true” but he had stopped about four months ago.
When he was interviewed by police about the allegations, Mr Carrick claimed the girl was a liar and denied there was any sexual abuse, jurors heard.
Mr Little went on to say there were “stark similarities” between the offences Mr Carrick had admitted to and the second complainant’s account of being raped and sexually assaulted.
This complainant was a university student who met Mr Carrick through a dating app.
Mr Little said he would get cross that she did not have enough time for him.
He would call her abusive names and kick her out of the house if she did not do something he wanted, it was alleged.
On one occasion, he pinned her down and raped her as she tried to get away, telling the woman, “You are not going anywhere”, the court heard.
The relationship ended after Mr Carrick allegedly went “berserk” after a night shift, grabbed her hair and tried to pull her down stairs.
At the time, Mr Carrick was still a serving officer and had yet to be “unmasked”, Mr Little said.
Mr Carrick has denied five counts of sexual assault relating to the girl in 1989 and 1990.
He has pleaded not guilty to two charges of rape, one of sexual assault and coercive and controlling behaviour towards the woman between 2014 and 2019.
Neither of the alleged victims in the case can be identified for legal reasons.
The Old Bailey trial was adjourned until Wednesday.
