My hell at hands OF THE monster in uniform
‘He shut me naked in a cupboard’
When Emma, a divorced mother of three, met PC David Carrick she trusted him immediately because her own father had been a policeman. But he was one of Britain’s worst serial rapists and, as she tells here, he put her through a year-long ordeal that beggars belief
AS THE daughter of a respected detective, emma grew up with a profound respect for men like her beloved father who had taken a vow to protect and serve. Some of her first memories as a little girl were of her father — a man she adored and idolised — in his uniform and helmet. the familiar sight of a police officer was something she, perhaps, more than others innately associated with a feeling of safety and trust.
So when a muscular, charismatic man approached her on a night out announcing he was a ‘police officer’, emma was instantly put at ease. When he asked her out, she said yes without a second thought.
‘he told me straight away that he was a policeman so he immediately gave me this sense of security and safety,’ she says.
‘My daddy was in the police, and he was my hero. I always looked up to him and saw him and other officers as men who put the bad guys away.’
She was flattered when the constable insisted on saving his number into her mobile phone, declaring: ‘You’re absolutely beautiful, I’m going to marry you one day.’
he told her he was in an elite armed unit, boasting he had guarded the Queen, the PM, celebrities and even President Obama during a state visit.
‘he had this big smile and was very charming and confident. he said he looked after people like the royals and sporting celebrities like the Williams sisters. ‘he told me “I will protect you”. he carried himself well, he was very manly.’
What makes emma’s story even more shocking is that she was hardly a young, impressionable innocent when they met.
Already in her 40s, with three grown-up children, her current relationship was coming to an end. So when he suggested she visit his home in Stevenage on their first date, she saw no harm. ‘I would never have normally gone to someone’s house, but he made me feel safe because of his job,’ she says. ‘he was protecting VIPs. It never occurred to me he could hurt me.’
But tragically the woman — who the Mail is calling emma for the purposes of this interview — was not safe. She was in terrible danger.
For the policeman courting her was David Carrick — a depraved predator who was this week unmasked as one of Britain’s worst serial rapists.
A prolific offender, he abused at least a dozen women and carried out more than 80 heinous crimes during his reign of terror which spanned over two decades. By the time he met emma in 2017, he was already well versed in coaxing his victims into a false sense of security, flashing his warrant card and boasting about protecting dignitaries.
the once bubbly mother was taken in by his charm offensive and, as she recalls, became ‘completely besotted’. So much so that Carrick was able to convince her to quit her job as a carer and move in with him not long after their first date.
‘he swept me off my feet, he was almost like a ray of sunshine. he said “I will protect you” and one of the first things he said to me was “You’ll never have to worry”.’
Confident she was embarking on a whirlwind romance with the man of her dreams, emma was already envisaging spending the rest of her life with her new lover.
he said: “You’re moving in with me, go pack up, I want you to live with me”. I was completely besotted. he had wooed me, he used to call me his princess and his cupcake.’
taking a leap of faith, she moved from her home, a market town in Cambridgeshire, without hesitation. It was proabably the worst thing she could have done, as she quickly became isolated from her friends and family, and totally dependent on Carrick — exactly what he wanted.
‘he said he was going to look after me and that I didn’t need to work. he promised to give me the world, and I believed him. he seemed like the perfect man.’
today she says: ‘that impulsiveness cost me so much and caused me so much trauma. It was the worst time of my life, because he completely and utterly destroyed me.’
What followed makes for sickening reading and accounts for many of the offences which will likely see Carrick spending the rest of his life behind bars.
emma was effectively held prisoner in his £350,000 terrace home in Stevenage for almost a year, during which time she was attacked, sexually, physically and mentally on a daily basis. that she is still alive today, and able to recount her harrowing story, is nothing short of a miracle.
‘I had to be like a sex slave to him and I was. I don’t think a single day went by without him abusing me. It was relentless,’ she told me, breaking down in tears.
‘he would say to me I had to obey him, and if I did not he would punish me. these punishments gradually got worse.
‘I have no doubt that if I had stayed longer, without a doubt, he would have killed me. everything was getting more aggressive. I was lucky to get away with my life.’
In the early days, she tried to stand up for herself, and even threatened to call the police. he was the police, he reminded her. he owned her.
‘he would hand me the phone and tell me to call 999 and just laugh, he was that confident. he was the law — it was a phrase he kept repeating, and I believed it,’ she said.
the previously outgoing mother of three was left feeling reclusive and withdrawn, convinced if she did run, he would track her down immediately. ‘I’ve never seen eyes like it, it was like a monster, like darkness. I just thought he was going to hunt me down and shoot me,’ she said.
Carrick subjected her to a harrowing campaign in which he degraded emma in ways which are too grotesque to print.
One of his depraved ‘ownership’ rituals was to make her drink his urine, and she was forced to carry out chores naked. She was restrained with police handcuffs and lashed with a sinister looking metal whip, leaving her ‘red raw and covered in welts’, and in such agony she couldn’t move. ‘ he seemed to get great satisfaction from it and would take pictures of my injuries.’
She said he then used her claustrophobia against her and started locking her in a tiny cupboard under the stairs. her voice breaks as she recalls how she begged to be let out of the tiny space: ‘I’ll never forget that cupboard. he would make me go in there naked, I would be freezing and wouldn’t be allowed to go to the toilet.
‘I would have to revisit happier times in my mind to get through it, I’d be there for hours, sometimes I’d doze off I was so exhausted.’
Carrick also starved her — sometimes only allowing her three chicken nuggets a day — and forced her to exercise constantly, causing her to drop from a dress size 16 to a size 6 in a matter of months.
‘he would say I was fat and disgusting. I was only allowed to eat once a day and that was when he came home and he would control the portions.
‘I would be starving, I would be so hungry but I didn’t dare go to fridge. I ended up losing four stone.’
‘he would whistle at me like a dog, and wherever I was, whatever I was doing, if I heard that whistle I would immediately drop everything and
go to him. He even had a little bell that he would tinkle if he wanted me to top up his wine.’
She was also raped so violently that she was physically sick, and was eventually left with internal injuries. ‘The sex became more and more aggressive, the word “no” just did not exist in his vocabulary so he didn’t care if I refused. I had no say in anything.’
At other times she was punched in the face for looking at her phone, made to sleep on the floor naked and viciously strangled, kicked and slapped.
If she dared to disobey him, the stocky gym fanatic would sit on her chest leaving her fearing for her life. To add insult to the many injuries, Carrick knowingly exposed her to an incurable STD.
Even when he was at work there was no respite, he had installed cameras all over his home and kept her under constant surveillance. ‘He would be watching me on his phone so I was constantly on egg shells, if he saw me sit down he would shout at me for being lazy.
‘He would also watch it to make sure I wasn’t eating and I was doing the fitness videos he told me to do.’
On one occasion, he took her to France for her birthday but ended up kicking her out of the bed and urinating on her in the hotel as he caught her looking at her phone.
Not surprisingly, after months of this relentless abuse, Emma — once so sociable and compassionate — became someone she hardly recognised. Carrick deliberately isolated her from her loved ones — even banning her from seeing her disabled son who lives in a care facility.
‘He hated anyone with any kind of disability or mental illness, he thought they should all be shot. So I wasn’t allowed to see my son because he had needs, or mention his name. He said forget about him, he’s dead to you.’
Breaking down she added: ‘ My poor son didn’t realise what was happening, he just knows he lost his mother for a year.’
She says as well as the physical abuse, Carrick ‘raped and stripped’ away her personality and self worth.
‘He would tell me he owned me and would call me a whore, who was old and fat. He said no one would ever want me. He would send me pictures of him holding his gun at work with the words “never forget who owns you”.
By the time she gathered the courage to escape by disappearing one day when he was at work, she was suicidal, suffering from a nervous stutter and plagued with anxiety, depression and nightmares.
The final straw for Emma came one night in 2017 after she painstakingly put up the Christmas tree as per Carrick’s instruction only for him to come home and tear it down, before subjecting her to a particularly vicious whipping.
‘It was like he hated me. I was screaming and he just kept lashing me. It was the final straw. I knew I had to get out.’
In the few, snatched, interactions she’d managed to have with her sister over that year, she’d always begged Emma to leave Carrick. So the next morning, Emma waited for Carrick to go to work before gathering her belongings and fleeing out of the front door, not caring if he spotted her on one of his cameras.
She took with her his metal whip: ‘I just couldn’t bear the thought of him using it on someone else,’ she says. ‘I had to take it, it was one small thing I could do to help. It is now with the police.’
She fled some 100 miles away to her sister’s home, but Carrick still found a way to torment her.
‘My sister still had access to his social media and he suddenly began tagging into local areas near us. He had no reason to be there, it left me terrified that he was close. I’m sure he was trying to scare me.’
For the next four years, she lived in fear that he would track her down. However, he never did carry out his threats.
But it was after the horrifying abduction, rape and murder of 33- year- old Sarah Everard by policeman Wayne Couzens in 2021, that Emma started to feel she should report Carrick.
When she heard that another of his victims had come forward, she called the police immediately. At long last, they were — finally — beginning to build a dossier of evidence against him.
Emma says the Met Police have a lot to answer for after it emerged
‘I feared he’d hunt me down and shoot me’
the force had missed nine crucial opportunities to stop Carrick in his tracks.
His persistent offending went unchecked for 18 years despite him being reported to the force numerous times over his predatory behaviour.
‘He was brought to their attention long before he met me. They could have saved me and so many of the other women from that trauma,’ she said.
Still struggling, Emma has settled down with a loving partner, but images of Carrick still haunt her.
‘I have this vision of him in his uniform with his gun coming to shoot me, I don’t think I’ll ever get away from that,’ she says.
Emma describes herself as a strong person and says she hopes by speaking out that other victims will also find the strength to step forward.
But, she says, when she revealed some of her ordeal to her daughters she faced some difficult questions.
They still ask how Carrick had such a hold over their mother, questioning: ‘Why, Mum?’
Even today, she’s not convinced she can offer a lucid answer.
‘If he was here now and he whistled at me, I would probably still run over. It’s heartbreaking to admit.’
‘I know there are still a lot of good coppers out there, but when I see them now I feel sick and nervous.
‘ The uniform used to bring me such comfort and remind me of my dad. Now it just makes me shudder.’