Mayor and Home Secretary call for action as rapist David Carrick could keep his gilded pension

A raped police officer could keep his entire state-funded pension for committing his appalling off-duty crimes.

David Carrick has admitted 49 charges against a dozen women, including 24 counts of rape, but still faces £22,000 a year in pension earnings if released from prison.

The 48-year-old abused his police powers to target his victims, showing them his arrest warrant and saying: “I’m a police officer, you’re safe with me.”

Scotland Yard said Home Office rules made it unlikely he could be stripped of his gold-plated final salary pension.

David Carrick has admitted 49 charges against a dozen women, including 24 counts of rape

However, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan is pursuing a forfeiture action, backed by Home Secretary Suella Braverman.

Met boss Mark Rowley is now grappling with the first major scandal of his four-month tenure by launching a review of 800 duty officers accused of misconduct.

He admitted yesterday that he couldn’t guarantee there wouldn’t be more sex offenders lurking in the ranks. The revelations came as:

• Detectives investigating Carrick said they expected more victims to come forward;

• Watchdogs said officers who missed several warnings from the firearms officer would escape punishment;

• The Home Office announced a reorganization of disciplinary procedures that would give the armed forces more powers to fire unsuitable and corrupt officers.

• A former victims’ officer demanded that Scotland Yard compensate each of Carrick’s victims;

• Dame Elish Angiolini, who is reviewing the lessons of the lockdown murder of Sarah Everard, will extend her investigation to Carrick.

Home Office guidelines state that requests for “forfeiture” to withdraw a police pension can be made where an officer has been convicted of an offense committed in connection with his or her service which leads to a serious loss of confidence in the police.

However, a Met spokesman said that was unlikely because Carrick’s offense was committed off-duty.

Met boss Mark Rowley is now grappling with the first major scandal of his four-month tenure by launching a review of 800 duty officers accused of misconduct

Detectives investigating Carrick said they expected more victims to come forward

As an elite parliamentary protection officer with two decades on the job, Carrick was likely paid around £43,000, a police source said.

And the Met’s gilded scheme means his pension at 60 would be worth £22,000 a year, according to calculations by Ian Cook of wealth management firm Quilter.

This would cost the average private sector worker £730,000 to secure themselves in the open market, said William Burrows of the Retirement Planning Project, a financial consultancy.

Former Home Secretary Priti Patel said London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Home Secretary Suella Braverman should do everything they can to deny Carrick his entire pension.

“If he walked out of prison with a pension pot of hundreds of thousands, the majority coming from his employer, that would be ridiculous and unjustifiable,” she said.

Former Victims Commissioner Dame Vera Baird said: “There should be some margin of reasonable discretion here because in cases like this it would obviously be appropriate to take a pension pot away from such a serious offender. What does it matter if he was on duty or not? I hope that his victims will be compensated without having to go to court.’

Freedom of Information data shows that in the five years to November 2022, only 42 applications for forfeiture of police pensions were approved.

The former victims’ officer asked Scotland Yard to compensate each of Carrick’s victims

Police officers facing the loss of their pensions after being convicted of serious crimes can turn to the Supreme Court to have their case heard.

A senior police source said forfeits only occurred in extreme cases such as national security violations, but Carrick’s abuse of his position to facilitate crime meant there could be strong reason to confiscate his employer contributions.

A spokesman for the Mayor’s Office of Police and Crime in London said it would follow the forfeiture, arguing: “It is clear that PC Carrick has committed offenses in connection with his service as a member of a police force.”

The Bureau is expected to discuss the case with the Met and then apply to the Home Secretary for a foreclosure of the pension. Ms Braverman said she supports the move but even if the application is successful, Carrick would keep the 35 per cent of the pension pot that he brought in himself.

He is understood to have been renting out his home in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, to a family while in custody for more than £1,200 a month.

His 80 offenses occurred between 2003 and 2020, but a six-year hiatus between 2009 and 2015 has convinced detectives there are more victims. Hertfordshire Police have set up a portal for women to come forward.

Carrick will be sentenced at Southwark Crown Court in London on February 6. He is likely to face many years behind bars.