Met blasted over officer accused of raping TWO police colleagues
SCOTLAND Yard faced fresh allegations of failing to protect women last night after a serving officer was accused of raping two colleagues.
The officer has never been charged or suspended but will finally face a misconduct hearing more than three years after the accusations were reported.
Yesterday, the two women issued a devastating attack on their own service, saying they did not trust it to protect victims.
The policewomen claimed they had been ‘cast aside’ by the police service – which had ‘looked after’ the accused officer, who was more senior.
Confidential details of their complaints were allegedly leaked to him. The women claim he used this information to prepare his excuses and warn one of them that his ‘spies’ were watching.
One of the policewomen described her frustration at having to take part in a ‘sexual offences awareness week’ at work.
It comes after another serving Metropolitan Police officer was charged last month with kidnapping and murdering Sarah Everard, which led to a fierce debate about the Yard’s ability to keep women safe.
Yesterday, the policewomen told harrowing stories to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and the BBC, which used the pseudonyms Holly, Kate and David instead of the three officers’ real names.
Holly said she was a junior police officer when she started a relationship with David, an older colleague.
After a few months he became controlling and violent, she said. She told how in 2013 he dragged her by the hair and ‘threw me
‘Hurled against arm of sofa, cracking her ribs’
into the dining room table and was going crazy at me’, adding: ‘I was saying, “Please stop, you’re hurting me”.’ He is then accused of hurling her against the arm of a sofa, cracking her ribs. She said he raped her on a separate occasion.
David then moved in with Kate, according to the second woman. Over their threeyear relationship, she said she too was raped, as well as being beaten up in her car while it was parked on police premises.
The women did not know each other but were later put in touch by a mutual friend and said they discovered their experiences were a ‘carbon copy’ of each other’s. They both reported the man in 2017.
Holly claims that Essex Police, which ran the investigation because of where the alleged assaults took place, ‘didn’t even finish taking all my allegations’ and did not arrest the man, who denied the accusations. In 2019, the Crown Prosecution Service decided there was not enough evidence to bring charges.
Yet the women were later awarded payouts by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority on the basis that Kate was raped and physically abused and police evidence indicated Holly was a victim of sexual abuse.
The Met says the officer will now face a disciplinary hearing.
Speaking about the sexual offences awareness week at work, Holly said: ‘They’re putting out all the propaganda encouraging women and men to come forward and deal with sexual assault. I was left thinking, “But you can’t even look after your own adequately”.’
An internal review by Essex Police uncovered ‘shortcomings’ in its investigation, including not arresting the suspect who ‘may’ have been treated differently ‘because he was a police officer’. Scotland Yard said it removed the policeman from a public-facing role after the allegations.
A spokesman said it ‘takes all allegations of domestic abuse extremely seriously’.