The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has confirmed that former police officer and convicted rapist David Carrick will lose his full state-funded pension. Carrick, 49, was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison last February after admitting to multiple rapes and sexual offences against 12 women. He was also dismissed from the Metropolitan Police. Carrick, from Stevenage, will forfeit 65% of his pension, the maximum legal reduction.
Khan stated that Carrick had grossly misused his position as a police officer to commit his heinous crimes and should therefore lose the employer contributions to his Met Police pension. According to case law and Home Office guidelines, only the police contributions to an officer’s pension can be forfeited, not the officer’s own contributions. This can only occur when an officer is convicted for an offence “committed in connection with their service as a member of a police force” and certified by the Home Secretary as causing serious public distrust or being severely harmful to state interests.
Sophie Linden, Khan’s deputy mayor for policing and crime, supported the decision, stating that Carrick did not deserve the benefits of an officer. Carrick joined the Met in 2001 and became an armed officer in the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection unit in 2009. He pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to 49 offences, including 24 counts of rape, committed between 2003 and 2020. Despite being reported multiple times to the Met and Hertfordshire Police, Carrick was only arrested later. The Met’s deputy assistant commissioner, Stuart Cundy, apologized to Carrick’s victims and endorsed the decision to apply the maximum pension forfeiture allowed by law.
