A victim of David Carrick, the former Metropolitan Police officer from Stevenage convicted of 48 rapes, has spoken to a new BBC documentary.

Carrick was a serving police officer at the time he committed 85 serious offences against 12 different women.

One of his victims, referred to as 'Sophie', contributed to Sarah Everard: The Search for Justice, a documentary first broadcast by the BBC on Tuesday, March 5.

The Comet: Carrick was convicted of 48 rapes.Carrick was convicted of 48 rapes. (Image: Metropolitan Police)

Ms Everard was murdered by Wayne Couzens, at the time a serving Metropolitan Police officer, in 2021. He had used his warrant card to falsely arrest her.

Couzens' arrest prompted a national outcry about violence against women and girls.

Viewers of the documentary hear the police, fire and crime commissioner for North Yorkshire saying that women "need to be streetwise about when they can be arrested", and see George Eustice MP commenting at the time that Couzens was only "one bad apple". 

Debaleena Dasgupta, a solicitor from the Centre for Women's Justice, told the programme: "The suggestion that Couzens was an individual on some sort of frolic of his own, was unacceptable.

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"Police-perpetrated abuse, violence, domestic abuse, sexual assault, rape, is not new ... solicitors like me have been acting for women in this sort of claim for years.

"In fact, one of my clients came forward about another Met officer the day after Wayne Couzens was sentenced. She came forward after hearing the victim impact statement by Sarah's mother."

Her client was 'Sophie', who told the documentary: "I think that it was when she was saying about Wayne Couzens [and] the abuse of power he used, her words just echoed. I just knew that I had to report him."

After 'Sophie' and others came forward, Carrick was sentenced to a minimum of 32 years in jail.

According to the BBC's documentary, the Met Police missed 16 opportunities to stop Carrick during his 20-year career with the force.

Last year, a Met Police spokesperson said: "Were these incidents to have occurred today, we are more confident they would have been identified as forming a pattern of behaviour requiring further investigation even in the event that individual allegations had been withdrawn."