West News Wire: According to Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan Police in London is investigating claims of sexual and domestic abuse involving 800 officers. The declaration was made shortly after David Carrick, a member of the force, admitted guilt to 49 of these offenses, including numerous rapes.
According to Rowley, investigators are currently looking into 1,633 cases of alleged sexual and domestic abuse from the previous ten years. Additionally, he added, all 45,000 Met employees would be rechecked to determine whether any prior violations were overlooked.
On Monday, Carrick, whose case has shed light on the issue, admitted to an additional six counts of sexual abuse, bringing the total to 49. It is alleged that the cop victimized 12 women over the course of two decades.
Commissioner Rowley apologized to the victims for the Met’s failure to investigate Carrick for so long, adding that the latter “should not have been a police officer.”
“We’ve let women and girls down, and indeed we’ve let Londoners down,” he said.
He added the force is aware that the high-profile case has likely shattered the trust in Met officers among many women in the British capital, something 10 Downing Street also said, on Monday.
Rowley admitted the police force has not “applied the same sense of ruthlessness to guarding our own integrity that we routinely apply to confronting criminals.”
Questions were raised after it was revealed that multiple complaints against Carrick had in fact been filed with the police from as early as 2000 all the way to 2021.
Accusations previously made by the man’s former partner also did not prevent him from successfully passing the Met’s vetting procedure back in 2001. He even faced claims by another ex-partner during his probationary period but the mounting complaints did not get in the way of Carrick’s subsequent vettings.
Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman described the revelations as “sobering” for the Met and “the whole policing family throughout the country.”
