Complaints against police officers must be “taken more seriously” to stop future cases like that of serial rapist David Carrick, a police and crime commissioner has told Sky News.
Festus Akinbusoye, the PCC for Bedfordshire, told the Beth Rigby Interviews programme that the solution “can’t be just about vetting”.
Suggesting the process is less stringent than it should be, he said people “who have been vetted still get through despite evidence”.
Carrick, 48, admitted dozens of rapes and sexual offences following attacks on 12 women.
Revealing that seven officers have been dismissed in his county alone, Mr Akinbusoye said people “like Carrick” are a “total shame to the uniform that they wear”.
There are “about 27 live cases” being investigated in Bedfordshire, “but not all of them are, like, rape”, Mr Akinbusoye added.
“There could be all kinds of different issues – misogyny, racism, you name it,” he said.
Mr Akinbusoye, Britain’s first black police and crime commissioner, said complaints against officers, both internally and externally, must be “taken more seriously”.
“In Bedfordshire, since I became PCC (in 2021), about seven officers have been dismissed,” he said.
Read more from Sky News
Racist PC case ‘absolutely despicable’, Sunak tells Met chief
Trust in policing at ‘lowest level’ after Carrick case, says watchdog
Sir Mark Rowley says he is determined to clean up the Met
“Some of them were dismissed even after they resigned because I wanted to make sure that they knew that they couldn’t just choose to jump before they were pushed, and we’re still going to take action anyway.”
Mr Akinbusoye said he was holding his county’s chief constable “accountable every single month”, which is also what “many other PCCs are doing”.
‘Drug underworld driving a lot of violence’
Asked about knife crime, he said the demand for drugs in Britain is “phenomenal” and is behind a lot of unrest.
“There is an underworld that is driving a lot of this violence in our communities,” he said.
“A lot of the stabbings, a lot of the violence, are driven by the demand for drugs in Britain, which is phenomenal.
“I would love to see more police resources being used in dealing with this demand that is also driving this violence in our communities.”
