RAPIST police officer David Carrick used his “power and control” to carry out a “catalogue of violent and brutal” sex attacks, a court heard today.

The 48-year-old Metropolitan Police constable appeared in the dock at Southwark Crown Court to be sentenced for 49 charges, including 24 counts of rape, during a two-day hearing.

He sent one of his victims a photograph of himself with a work-issue gun, saying: “Remember, I am the boss,” the court heard.

Mr Carrick also used his police baton and handcuffs during attacks on a dozen women over 17 years.

Prosecutor Tom Little KC said: “If the offending had to be accurately and fairly summarised, it was systematic.

“It was a catalogue of violent and sexual offences perpetrated on multiple victims, whether he was in a controlling or coercive relationship with them or not or even if it was just a single occasion.”

Mr Little said it did not matter to Mr Carrick who the woman was, adding: “The reality was, if he had the opportunity, he would rape them, sexually abuse or assault them and/or humiliate them.”

Statements from his victims were read out in court.

One said: “That night, I felt I had encountered evil. I honestly thought he was going to kill me.

“I felt lucky to be able to leave the next morning as I didn’t believe I would be doing so.

“I felt so ashamed, dirty and sick.”

Mr Little said Mr Carrick had met one woman at a bar in London in 2002, telling her that “he was the safest person that she could be with and that he was a police officer” before taking her back to his nearby flat.

She “froze” when he put a black handgun to her head and said: “You are not going,” before repeatedly raping her, he told the court.

The woman sought medical attention afterwards and was told by an A&E nurse that it was not the first time she had heard that a police officer had raped somebody and, “unfortunately, didn’t think it would be the last.”

She said that the nurse had told her: “The law tend to protect their own.”

Defence barrister Alisdair Williamson KC told the court that his client “accepts full responsibility for what he has done.”

Judge Ms Justice Cheema-Grubb said that she would pass sentence this morning.