Victims of serial rapist David Carrick have been unable to hear a judge passing sentence for his horrific crimes because of a broken court video link.
Twelve women the former Metropolitan Police officer abused were given the choice to attend the hearing at Southwark Crown Court remotely, througyh a secure link.
But there was no sound on the link, which was also used by more than a dozen journalists, detectives and lawyers, as Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb started sentencing Carrick.
As the hearing went ahead despite numerous people telling court staff they could hear nothing, a police officer who investigated wrote on the hearing’s message board: “This is really unfair for our complainants.”
Another participant wrote: “This is an absolute joke. So professional and so distressing for the victims. I am fuming.”
The same sound problems had been reported on the first day of the hearing and Tuesday’s sentencing had been delayed for an hour to fix the issue, with no success.
Victims and other attendees scrambled to watch it on Sky News instead, where it was being broadcast under a new scheme for high-profile sentencing hearings.
But because of the extremely graphic nature of Carrick’s abuse, and the danger of broadcasting details that may identify victims, only small portions of the judge’s remarks were played.
The 48-year-old abused multiple victims over 17 years, all during his career in the Metropolitan Police.
He has pleaded guilty to 49 offences, which represent more than 70 instances of serious sexual offending.
They include 24 anal rapes, five vaginal rapes, 19 oral rapes and other sexual assaults, many of which were committed “during controlling and coercive and relationships”.
At the start of a two-day sentencing hearing on Monday, prosecutor Tom Little KC said Carrick’s first known rape took place little over a year into his service as a constable.
“The offending on the indictment spans a period of 17 years increasing in its frequency more recently and with an increasing level of humiliation being inflicted,” he told Southwark Crown Court.
“If the offending had to be accurately and fairly summarised it would be a systematic catalogue of violent and brutal sexual offences perpetrated on multiple victims, whether he was in a controlling or coercive relationship with them or not or even if it was just a single occasion. The reality was that it did not matter who the victim was.”
Mr Little said Carrick was “in no doubt” that victims felt they would not be believed if they reported that they had been raped by a Metropolitan Police officer.
