The Met Police is accused of ‘abdicating their responsibility’ in the case of a serial rapist officer as it emerges Scotland Yard missed SEVEN chances to catch him

• Former PC Adam Provan was sentenced to 16 years this week for rape  

The Metropolitan Police has been accused of ‘abdicating their responsibility’ as it emerged Scotland Yard missed at least seven chances to catch a serial rapist within its ranks.

Former PC Adam Provan was sentenced to 16 years this week for raping a fellow officer and a 16-year-old girl.

But in a chilling echo of the case of rapist firearms officer David Carrick, who was jailed this year, it is claimed multiple opportunities to stop Provan’s crimes were missed by senior officers.

Campaign groups have reacted with fury after sentencing Judge Noel Lucas KC noted Britain’s biggest police force cared more about ‘protecting one of their own’ than women’s safety.

Andrea Simon, director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition, said it was appalling but not surprising that the Met missed so many opportunities to catch Provan.

Former PC Adam Provan was sentenced to 16 years this week for raping a fellow officer and a 16-year-old girl 

Lauren Taylor, who has waived her right to anonymity, at New Scotland Yard, central London, ahead of the sentencing of former PC Adam Provan

She added: ‘The force’s reluctance to act on numerous reports against him, including harassment, stalking and rape, is a massive abdication of responsibility to the public it exists to protect.

‘The rape of a 16-year-old girl by a man in a position of power and trust was entirely preventable and there should be accountability for these failures to act.’

Provan was accused of groping a 15-year-old just two months after he joined the force in 2003. That same year, members of the public who knew him as a young man also warned the force about his overly sexualised and violent behaviour.

Two years later, when Provan was an established response officer in east London, a female colleague told a superior he had harassed her and burned her with a kettle – but she was encouraged to keep quiet to protect her job.

READ MORE: ‘I was pushed up against a tree and raped. I froze with fear and my mind turned off’: Victim lays bare Met police officer’s terrifying sex attack in harrowing detail – as Scotland Yard apologises for ‘letting women down’ 

Provan would eventually be convicted of raping this female officer.

Also in 2005, Provan was accused of contacting a 16-year-old girl who had witnessed a crime. The matter was not referred to the force’s professional standards at the time. Later that year, he was also found to have made a number of nuisance calls to a female colleague.

Provan took a 17-year-old girl in 2013 for a drive in his marked police car and the following year he stuffed his phone number through a woman’s letterbox.

The officer was eventually arrested in June 2016 for the rape six years earlier of Lauren Taylor, who has waived her right to anonymity, but was placed on restricted duties rather than being suspended.

Anthony Metzer KC, the barrister who prosecuted Provan, claimed there were ‘undoubtedly huge missed opportunities’ to investigate the rapist more thoroughly.

There had been a clear effort from senior officers to downplay the concerns of the female officer who reported Provan in 2005, he said.

Former Met police officer Adam Provan, who has been found guilty of rape at Wood Green Crown Court

Lauren Taylor (then aged 16), one of the victims of former PC Adam Provan

Mr Metzer added: ‘The woman in this case was told not to push things for the sake of her own career.’

Claire Waxman, London’s Victims Commissioner, said the force’s processes and culture had protected and enabled predators for too long.

She added: ‘The case of Adam Provan demonstrates, once again, how vital it is that the Metropolitan Police reform and rebuild the trust and confidence with women and girls, including within their own ranks, as quickly as possible.’

Met assistant commissioner Louisa Rolfe said: ‘We must understand have we missed opportunities and it’s quite clear from what we’ve seen already that we have let the victims down and that must never happen again.’

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