Met rapist’s sentence not reviewed over leniency

Rapist police officer David Carrick’s prison sentence will not be reviewed as “too lenient”, the Government’s law officers have ruled, despite saying his crimes were “abhorrent”.

Michael Tomlinson, the Solicitor General, said 48-year-old Carrick’s 36 life sentences for sexually assaulting 12 women during a 17-year reign of terror would not be referred to the Court of Appeal to be reconsidered as “unduly lenient”. In a statement, Mr Tomlinson said the case had not met the legal threshold for referral, which requires the original judge to have either made a “gross error” or to have imposed a sentence outside the range available to the court.