Alleged rape victim says ex-police officer David Carrick ‘ruined my life’

A woman has described how convicted sex offender David Carrick abused her while working as a police officer, saying “he’s kind of ruined my life”.

Ex-Metropolitan Police officer Carrick, 50, is on trial at the Old Bailey accused of raping the woman on a number of occasions and subjecting her to a sex act which she did not consent to.

At the time, they were in a “toxic relationship” which was controlled by him, the Old Bailey has heard.

In a videoed police interview played in court on Thursday, the woman alleged that Carrick had also strangled her, called her abusive names and kicked her out of the house during their relationship.

Asked to describe Carrick as a person, she said: “Charming, witty, sarcastic, passive, closed off. He was all borderline acceptably arrogant, everyone’s best friend.”

On his physical characteristics, the woman said Carrick was quite stocky, not scruffy, blended in well and was “stronger than me ten-fold”.

On what their relationship was like, she said: “Quite traumatising. I wish I’d never met him so…”

Asked to explain why, she went on: “‘Cos he’s kind of ruined my life, tainted my opinions on sex and relationships and trust and care.”

She said that she knew he was a police officer because he had told her at the time.

She described one occasion when he had allegedly subjected her to a sex act, saying: “After it happened, I was in complete hysterics, I was crying, I was screaming, I didn’t expect that to happen, I didn’t want that to happen.”

Giving evidence in court from behind a screen, the woman told jurors that when she first met Carrick through a dating app, his messages were “friendly flirty” but also “quite demanding, controlling and covert”.

She was left “confused” when he responded angrily if she did not reply to his messages.

The woman told jurors it was not an equal relationship and he would demand she “obey” him.

She said: “He would put his hand around my neck extremely tightly – he would do it in public too.”

Cross-examining, Rebecca Wade KC suggested that her account to police of their early communications inferred that Carrick “would be something other than fun, endearing and pleasant”.

The woman agreed, saying he could also be “oppressive”.

Ms Wade said: “If that’s true why did you arrange to meet him for the first time?”

The woman said she was “confused” and denied portraying him in a negative light from the outset.

Ms Wade said the messages the woman had handed to police were selected by her “to show his bad behaviour”.

The woman replied: “They were requested from me. I selected all of them that were in my possession.”

Previously, the court has heard how the woman gave her account after Carrick pleaded guilty in 2022 and 2023 to a large number of sexual and other offences against woman, near all of whom he knew.

They included 71 instances of sexual violence against 12 different women over a period spanning 17 years, the court has been told.

The prosecution have asserted there were “stark similarities” between the offences Carrick had admitted to and the woman’s allegations.

Carrick is also accused of repeatedly molesting a girl in the late 1980s when she was aged between 12 and 14 and he was still a teenager.

When he was interviewed by police about the allegations, Carrick claimed sex with the woman was consensual and the girl was a liar.

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.

Carrick, formerly of Stevenage in Hertfordshire, has denied five counts of sexual assault relating to the girl in the later 1980s.

Neither of the alleged victims in the case can be identified for legal reasons.

The Old Bailey trial continues.