A detective who was raped by the former Scotland Yard officer David Carrick has called for the head of the Metropolitan police to resign, saying the handling of her case was “like being raped all over again”. Linda Williams, 60, who has waived her right to anonymity, was attacked by Carrick in 2004. She launched a legal case against the Met for failing to protect her against the serial rapist, and has now settled for an undisclosed six-figure sum without the force admitting liability.
Carrick, 51, who previously served as an armed officer in the Met, is one of the country’s worst sex offenders and is serving 37 life sentences after attacking more than a dozen women. Williams, from Hertfordshire, has said the way she was treated by the force throughout her legal claim was “devastating” and that it drove her to contemplate suicide. Both the criminal justice process and the civil process have been so traumatic.
Despite that experience and my understanding of the system, I still wouldn’t report it, because of the complete lack of empathy and support I have experienced from the police. She said the Met’s legal team in the case questioned the severity of her post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis. Williams alleged it was the “Met’s fault” that she could not report the rape in 2004, and that “little had changed” in the culture since then.
She added that the force was “like an episode of Life On Mars”, the 2000s TV drama set in a fictional 1970s police station. She said: “I wouldn’t have had the backup of my colleagues in dangerous situations and ultimately, I doubt anything would have been done about Carrick.” Williams reported the rape in 2021, and said she had had no relationships since the attack, 22 years ago. That makes for a lonely Christmas and no holidays.
That’s down to the attack. Carrick stole the future that I wanted.” Williams told the BBC the PTSD she had experienced after the attack was “90% down to the Met police, 10% to Carrick”. In 2022 and 2023, Carrick pleaded guilty to 71 sexual offences, including 48 rapes against 12 other women over 17 years.
In November last year, he was convicted of molesting a 12-year-old child in the late 1980s and repeatedly raping and abusing a female ex-partner. A Met spokesperson said: “Serious flaws in the way we approached such investigations at the time meant we did not spot his pattern of abusive behaviour. We recognise the unique and additional impact on DC Linda Williams, whose exposure to Carrick came as a result of her being a Met officer.
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