Detective raped by colleague says Met handling of case 'like being raped again'

Detective Constable Linda Williams, raped by fellow Metropolitan Police officer David Carrick in 2004, has told the BBC that Scotland Yard's handling of her civil compensation case felt "like being raped all over again".

Carrick, jailed for life in January 2023 for sexual offences against Williams and 11 other women, attacked Williams while they worked together on a three-month attachment in south London. Williams did not report the rape until 2021, after seeing media coverage that Carrick had been charged with raping another woman. She reported it to Hertfordshire Police, which investigated.

During her four-year civil case against the Met seeking damages for failing to protect her, Williams says the force's legal team challenged the severity of her post-traumatic stress disorder diagnosis. The lawyers suggested her PTSD could not be severe because she had been raped only once. Williams describes being "horrified and shocked" and reduced to tears, feeling she was being called a liar.

The Met has settled her case and paid compensation without accepting liability. A Met spokesman told the BBC the force "tried to reduce further distress and re-traumatisation" and "aimed to deal with her claims as quickly and compassionately as possible".

Williams, a serving officer for 27 years, has waived her legal right to anonymity to speak publicly. She is calling for Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to resign, saying he has failed to change police culture as promised when he took the role in 2022. She no longer trusts the Met to handle cases like hers correctly.

Williams says she felt unable to report the rape for years because of the culture in the Met. Reporting would have ended her career, she believes, because Carrick would not have been charged and she would have been shunned. She describes a "very sexist" culture that included having her forehead stamped with "Property of the Met" and being locked in a police car boot during a shift.

She attributes 90 per cent of her PTSD to the Met Police and 10 per cent to Carrick. The rape has had vast mental and emotional impact. She has not had a relationship with a man since the attack and says she has missed out on having a family.

Since Carrick's conviction, Williams says the Met's culture has not changed enough. She states she would not report a rape to the Met today because she has no faith the force would handle it correctly.