Ex-officer David Carrick declines to give evidence in sex abuse trial

Former Metropolitan Police officer David Carrick has declined to give evidence in his trial for sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl and former partner.

The 50-year-old convicted serial rapist is accused of molesting the girl in the late 1980s and raping the woman during the course of a toxic relationship more than 20 years later.

Jurors have heard the allegations came after Carrick pleaded guilty in 2022 and 2023 to 71 instances of sexual violence against 12 different women over a period spanning 17 years.

Carrick has denied the fresh allegations against him, saying that sex with the woman was consensual and claimed the child accuser had lied.

On Monday, his barrister Rebecca Wade KC told jurors that Carrick would not be giving evidence in his defence and she would not be calling any other evidence on his behalf.

Trial judge Mrs Justice McGowan said the trial would move on with the jury beginning deliberations on Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday.

The judge told jurors that evidence of Carrick’s previous convictions were relevant to their considerations, but said: “It does not make your decision for you.

“The fact he has done it before does not prove he is guilty of these offences.”

In a closing speech, prosecutor Tom Little KC said Carrick’s silence was “deafening”.

He told jurors: “The cold reality of this case is the man in the dock, a Met police officer for decades, started his abuse when he was a teenager.

“When he was a serving officer, he was a serial rapist, a serial sex offender, and a coercer and controller of women he was in a relationship with.”

The prosecutor told jurors not to lose sight of what Carrick did for a living, saying it must have made him feel “invincible”.

It all “came crashing down around his ears” in 2022 and 2023 when the “real David Carrick was then unmasked”, he said.

Mr Little said Carrick’s “Mr Nice Guy” image did not stand up to the “grim reality” that he would commit criminal offences “at will”.

Carrick 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.

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

The Old Bailey trial continues.