A former Metropolitan Police officer branded a “Jekyll and Hyde” character after being revealed as a serial rapist who carried out attacks during his 16-year policing career is set to be sentenced.
Adam Provan, 44, bullied, humiliated, and repeatedly raped a fellow police officer before going on to attack a 16-year-old GCSE student during a “hellish” first date.
Wood Green crown court heard police bosses knew Provan had harassed and stalked the first victim but concerns were “swept under the carpet” instead of being fully investigated.
He carried out a double rape on the teenage girl in 2010 during a blind date, when he had given a fake name and pretended to be 22-years-old.
In 2016 she came forward to bravely expose Provan as a sexual offender, describing how she had been frozen in fear as he attacked her in the woods and again near to a children’s playground.
Provan took the girl to McDonald’s and researched film plots to craft an alibi that they had been to the cinema together, the court heard.
She stayed quiet for years, believing her word would never be believed over that of a Metropolitan Police officer.
In a victim impact statement on Monday, she said: “The day I met Adam Provan changed my life forever.
“No prison sentence will take away the harm Adam Provan has caused me. No amount of justice will make me forget the date from hell.
“Even though I tried my best to block it out I will never forget how scared I was when the assault took place, and 13 years later reliving my worst nightmare.”
She said it was “sickening” to be told Provan really was a police officer as he had claimed when they first met.
Following a trial in 2018, Provan was found guilty of rape and jailed for nine years, but to the victim’s horror the conviction was overturned on appeal.
However her testimony had given the second woman the courage to come forward and reveal that Provan had raped her repeatedly as well. Together, their evidence at his retrial presented a compelling picture of abuse, and returned guilty verdicts for eight charges of rape.
The police officer’s evidence revealed - in echoes of the case of Met Police officer and serial rapist David Carrick - how the force had the chance to root out a rotten officer but chose instead to ignore his true character.
The woman told the court how Provan had once said he “hoped she would get raped” before going on to carry out such an attack.
She reported him to his policing superiors, not mentioning at that stage that she had been raped but highlighting conduct amounting to harassment and stalking. But she was dismayed when it was not investigated.
“She didn’t feel like it was handled very seriously by management at the time”, a female police officer told the court, of the complaint. “As a victim, I don’t think she felt at all supported.”
One of the woman’s friends told the court: “She was petrified he was going to turn up at her house and kill her.”
Years later, in 2010, Provan struck again, attacking the 16-year-old girl after they had exchanged messages and agreed to meet for a blind date.
Provan, who had pretended to be 22-years-old, claimed he was shocked at her young age when they first met. But this contrasted sharply with her evidence that he knew she was 16, still at school, and she had even sent him a picture of her celebrating the end of her GCSEs.
They were meant to go on a cinema date, but Provan took the girl instead to a woodland area and demanded sex.
“I didn’t want him to touch me”, she told the court. “He pulled out a condom and asked if we could ‘do it’. I said no.
“I said it clearly, I didn’t want to have sex with him.”
She described pulling away from Provan, repeatedly saying ‘no’, but was ultimately unable to fend him off.
“I held on to a tree and just froze”, she said. “Afterwards I was feeling empty and withdrawn. I had no choice in what I did.”
Provan raped the girl a second time after he had driven her to McDonalds for milkshakes, and researched on his phone the plot of a “chick flick” film he said they would pretend to have seen.
After the guilty verdicts earlier this year, Judge Noel Lucas KC hit out at Met Police bosses, saying they should be “ashamed” of the initial response to concerns about Provan, which were raised before he raped the 16-year-old girl.
At the start of his sentencing hearing on Monday, prosecutor Anthony Metzer KC said Provan abused his position as an officer to gain young women’s trust and had “aspects of a Jekyll and Hyde character”.
He said Provan had “an extended history of allegations” of sexual misconduct dating back to the 1990s, including “stalkerish behaviour”.
The former officer had 751 female contacts in his mobile phone, indicating a “fascination bordering on the obsessive” with young women, said Judge Lucas.
The court also heard how in 2005 another female police officer had reported receiving “nuisance” messages from Provan but the complaint was dealt with “informally” and not taken further.
The trial heard how Provan was known as “odd” by police colleagues, and he once told female colleagues he would “follow them” when they refused to invite him to lunch.
When he was arrested, police also discovered legal pornography on his phone revealing an interest in sex with young women.
Investigations are also underway into the way Provan was freed from prison following the Court of Appeal decision.
A second man had been convicted of also sexually abusing the 16-year-old girl, but the truthfulness of her evidence was called into question by a photo, said to put her in a different part of the country to where she said the abuse took place.
Provan and the second man’s convictions were both overturned on this basis, but in the middle of Provan’s second trial it dramatically emerged that the data showing when the picture had been taken had been altered.
A key plank of Provan’s defence case collapsed, and the second man may now face a return to the Court of Appeal to determine whether the altered photo date was accidental or deliberate.
Judge Lucas is expected to consider a life sentence for Provan at a hearing due to conclude on Tuesday.
