“Bastard Dave” is the lighthearted nickname given to former armed police officer David Carrick by the colleagues who knew him best. This convicted sex offender, who was charged with 71 sexual offences in 2023, has recently received his 37th life sentence – this time, for the molestation of a 12-year-old girl in 1989.
David Carrick is now known to have victimised 14 women across several decades. His harrowing crimes include 24 counts of rape, multiple cases of sustained violent physical and mental abuse, and threatening his victims with work-issued weaponry.
Crown Prosecution Service Chief Prosecutor Jaswant Narwal stated during Carrick’s trial in 2023 that “the scale of the degradation Carrick subjected his victims to is unlike anything I have encountered in my 34 years with the Crown Prosecution Service”.
Notably, Carrick made repeated use of his role in the police to enact this violence against women undisturbed. His distinct technique was to lure in his victims by reassuring them they were safe with him due to his position as a police officer.
And the infuriating, appalling fact remains that the police had years of evidence against Carrick. A multitude of complaints and reports regarding his behaviour had been made from before and during his time as an officer, which started in 2001.
Yet as late as 2017 Carrick was given permission to continue in his role by the Met police, allowing his pattern of torture to continue uninterrupted.
A review of the past ten years has found 131 Metropolitan Police officers and staff have committed crimes or misconduct, and that potentially thousands were not properly vetted in the rush to fill recruitment gaps.
No wonder the public grows more fearful of the so-called crime ‘preventers,’ the ostensible ‘protectors’ of the public.
Currently, major investigations are underway against officers accused of using sex workers whilst on duty. At the same time, cases against officers who have shot and killed unarmed civilians are being dropped.
The case of Sarah Everard still burns fresh in public memory. Everard was kidnapped and raped in March 2021 by off-duty police officer Wayne Couzens – none other than David Carrick’s close colleague in the Met’s elite Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection unit.
This behaviour is rife in organisations which hold power over the masses in order to uphold the capitalist state.
This brushing-away of grave violations against basic human dignity – whether within the police, the government, or the monarchy as seen with the allegations against Prince Andrew – is not just a tendency, but an inevitability under capitalism. They cannot be reformed.
We call for a complete abolition of this brutal subjugation through complete socialist revolution.
