The police cannot reform themselves, so the Home Office must do it for them

HOW can the Met have missed it? One of Britain's most prolific sex offenders walked through the doors of a police station every day. During his career as a police officer David Carrick attacked at least 12 women. It is not as if he kept all of this secret either.

- Martha Gill

He was only suspended from duty after a second rape complaint was made, leading to his arrest. His colleagues are, remember, people trained explicitly to catch criminals. Yet one of the country's most dangerous men passed unnoticed, every day, right under their noses.

Is Carrick the best undercover criminal in the world? Does he have a stomach of iron? If so he's not alone. In 2021 Wayne Couzens murdered Sarah Everard while serving as a police officer.

But Carrick and Couzens were not good at hiding their behaviour - in the case of Carrick his employers knew of the pattern of the allegations against him. The police aren't failing to identify the criminals among them. These crimes are not missed, but tolerated.

The question is: where does the toleration happen? And by whom?

Well, clearly there is a "culture of tolerance" among fellow officers, on which much of the media attention has focused. Carrick was known as "bastard Dave". If officers had even a hint that their colleagues were so awful, why did they not report them?