The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has said he will apply to the home secretary to strip serial rapist David Carrick of his police pension.
A spokesperson for the mayor said Khan would make the move to strip the former Metropolitan police officer of his estimated £22,000-a-year pension because his crimes were committed in connection with his job.
A spokesperson said: “The mayor’s office for policing and crime will pursue pension forfeiture through an application to the home secretary as it is clear that PC Carrick committed offences in connection with his service as a member of a police force.”
The Home Office minister Robert Jenrick said the government supported Khan’s efforts.
“The forfeiture of the pension is a matter for the mayor of London but we support his efforts to remove that pension, if indeed that is what he chooses to do,” Jenrick told Sky News. “This is one of the most egregious cases of police misconduct in the history of the Met, perhaps in the history of British policing. This disgusting individual should not benefit from his years serving in the Metropolitan police.”
Following Carrick’s conviction and dismissal from the Met, the mayor’s office for policing and crime (Mopac), will now receive a report from the force setting out the details of PC Carrick’s conviction and service with the force. An application will then be made by Mopac to the home secretary for the issue of a certificate of forfeiture.
Government guidelines state that pensions may only be forfeited once an officer has been convicted of an offence that has been carried out in connection with their police service. The home secretary can then issue a certificate if they are satisfied that the offence the officer was convicted of was either gravely injurious to the interests of the state or liable to lead to a serious loss of confidence in the public service. Freedom of information data shows that only 42 applications for forfeiture of police pensions were approved in the five years to November 2022.
Dame Vera Baird, a former victims’ commissioner, said it would be “appropriate to take a pension pot away from such a serious offender”, adding: “What does it matter if he was on duty or not? I hope his victims will be compensated without having to go to court.”
The police watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct, said it had no plans to investigate how Carrick went undetected, but the Metropolitan police and the government are coming under pressure to punish officers who allowed Carrick to be shielded from the sack despite multiple warnings about his abuse. The failure to remove him would also be part of the Angiolini inquiry already examining how another serving officer was able to abduct, rape and murder Sarah Everard.
Jenrick said there “now needs to be a very detailed investigation as to exactly what happened and who might have known about this during his years of service”.
“Mark Rowley, who’s leading the Metropolitan police is focused on that,” he told Sky. “The home secretary has met with him to get explicit assurances that he will be working now intensively to understand the events, how this could possibly have happened for such a prolonged period of time and what we can do to make sure it never happens again.”
