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The Right to be Made Silent

KATHERINA HOI | CONTENT WRITER

Imet a policeman once that compared the force to a brotherhood, an adult fraternity. They have each other’s backs. What he might not have meant to imply is also that they protect each other if necessary: they turn shields outward and close rank. He did not see this implication, but he does not have to look for implied meanings the way that women do.

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The arrest of Metropolitan Police’s serial rapist David Carrick has truly exposed the repulsive and predatory nature of the police’s abuse of power.

In December 2022, Carrick pleaded guilty to his first 43 charges and on January 16th, he pleaded guilty to another 6 rape charges. He is one of the UK’s worst sexual offenders. His victims were allegedly sexually humiliated, locked in cupboards, branded as “slaves”, and even urinated on. The Metropolitan Police had had 9 chances to stop Carrick but missed every single one. This is not the first time the Metropolitan Police have missed such allegations either. It actually happens all too frequently.

From 2018 to 2021, 1,319 police officers from 41 different UK police forces were accused of domestic violence. 80% of these officers kept their jobs after the allegations, with only a tiny fraction of them facing any disciplinary actions like dismissal or suspension, according to journalist Vikram Dodd. The Metropolitan Police received 398 reports in this time frame with only 9 dismissals of the serving officers. That is less than 0.2%. This is the same police force that saw their one of their own kidnap, torture, and murder Sarah Everard. The same police force that, in 2022, had their WhatsApp groupchats exposed for joking about sexual violence against women. Anonymous female police officers told Dodd that it was part of the culture; that they either play the game, stay quiet, or leave. This is the reality of the brotherhood. And the conviction rate of police domestic abusers is 3.4% compared to 6.3% in the general population.

Carrick allegedly told his victims that they could trust him because he was part of the police. The badge created a false sense of security that allowed him full control. This same badge and brotherhood let him go without consequence for 17 years as he allegedly asked his victims, “who are they going to believe?”. People want to trust and believe that the police have been properly vetted. If you cannot trust the police, who can you trust? That is the question that thousands of women ask now. To the cynic, the answer is no one. To the realist, it seems the answer is the same.

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