David Carrick Gets Additional Life Sentence for Assaults

David Carrick, a former Metropolitan Police officer convicted as one of Britain's most prolific serial rapists, received an additional life sentence on Thursday at the Old Bailey in London for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl in the late 1980s and abusing a former partner two decades later. The 50-year-old, already serving 36 concurrent life sentences with a minimum term of 32 years for 71 sexual offenses against 12 women over 17 years, was given a new life term with a minimum of 30 years to run concurrently for these latest convictions.

The new charges stemmed from incidents that bookended Carrick's decades-long pattern of predatory behavior. Between April 1989 and August 1990, when Carrick was aged 14 to 16, he sexually assaulted the girl five times over an 18-month period, according to court proceedings. The abuse occurred sometimes twice a week, with Carrick covering her mouth to muffle screams and once trapping her between furniture, prosecutors told the jury. The girl disclosed the assaults to her mother at age 14, prompting Carrick to write a partial confession in a letter recovered years later from his medical records. In it, he acknowledged the incidents,...