A former Metropolitan Police officer branded the “devil” after being exposed as a serial rapist must serve at least 18 years in prison, judges have ruled.
Cliff Mitchell, 24, was called a “pathetic excuse of a man” by one of his victims when he was jailed for life with a minimum term of 14 years in May.
He had subjected two victims to years of sexual abuse, and boasted that he would never be caught because of his status as a police officer.
At the Court of Appeal on Thursday, judges agreed to increase the minimum term by four years after finding the sentencing judge had been too lenient on Mitchell.
Lord Justice William Davis, sitting with Mrs Justice Thornton and Judge Michael Chambers KC, questioned the decision to treat the fact that Mitchell was a police officer who would struggle in prison as a mitigating factor.
“Where the offending is as serious as it was here, we consider this factor should be of negligible mitigating effect.”
The Court of Appeal judges also concluded that Mitchell’s “desire for control and dominance” should not have been used as a mitigating factor.
“On the face of it, this is a surprising conclusion,” said Lord Justice Davis.
“Very many of the offences involve an exercise of power. It is in the nature of grave sexual offending against women.”
The judges concluded the sentencing judge had failed to pass a sentence that reflected the full extent of Mitchell’s offending.
The judges increased the sentence after a petition by the Attorney General, and dismissed Mitchell’s attempt to have the jail term cut.
Mitchell was arrested in 2023 after he raped a woman three times before putting a knife to her throat, binding her wrists with cable ties, and placing tape over her mouth.
The police officer, a PC in the Met Police, raped the restrained woman again, before forcing her into his car.
However she managed to stop the vehicle by pretending to be feeling sick, and fled through the street with Mitchell in pursuit.
The woman, still with her wrists bound and with no shoes on, was offered refuge in the car of a passing stranger, and Mitchell was arrested later the same day.
Croydon crown court heard Mitchell had laughed at the victim, called her a “s***”, and insisted would believe her complaints because he was a police officer.
Mitchell could have been caught and stopped years before the woman’s rape ordeal, the court heard.
He had been reported to police in 2017 for repeat rapes and sexual abuse against a young child.
The victim had been interviewed by the Met Police and undergone medical examinations.
But the investigation was prematurely abandoned due to either “police inexperience” or a “misunderstanding of the results of the medical examination”, the court heard.
This case against Mitchell was revived after his arrest in 2023, and he went on to be charged for a catalogue of crimes between 2014 and 2023.
One of Mitchell’s victims told him in May: “You deserve to spend the rest of your life in a cell because you are a serious danger to every woman walking the streets.
“You are the devil. You disgust me. I hope you suffer for the rest of your life.”
The second victim said: “I’m holding you to account for your actions, you took away my self-worth.
“You are a pathetic excuse of a man.”
In her original sentencing remarks, Mrs Justice May called Mitchell a “deeply troubled young man” with a “desire for control”.
“The fact he was a police officer, albeit for a short time, will make imprisonment a harsher experience for him”, she concluded.
The court heard Mitchell denied the charges against him at trial, and continue to display a lack of remorse after conviction.
Mitchell, of Wandsworth, south-west London, was convicted of ten counts of rape, three counts of rape of a child under 13, one count of kidnap and a breach of a non-molestation order.
