A Metropolitan police officer has been charged with raping a woman on Brighton beach, while another is being sent for trial, accused of 21 counts of rape over 17 years.

Sergeant Laurence Knight was arrested on 28 July last year after a woman reported being raped on the beach 11 days earlier.

He was released on bail while enquiries continued and has now been charged by Sussex Police. He will appear at Brighton & Hove Magistrates’ Court on 23 June.

The officer, who was attached to Met Detention (which deals with police custody units), has been suspended from duty.

Meanwhile PC David Carrick, an armed officer who served with the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command and worked on the parliamentary estate, appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Friday by video link from Belmarsh prison.

He pleaded not guilty to 15 charges, including eight counts of rape, two counts of assault by penetration, four counts of sexual assault and attempted rape against five women.

The charges include allegations Carrick, who has been suspended by the Met, raped one woman in the woods and sexually assaulted her by urinating on her and hitting her with a belt.

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He has previously denied 29 other charges and now faces a total of 44 counts between March 2004 and September 2020.

They are: 21 counts of rape; nine counts of sexual assault; five counts of assault by penetration; three counts of coercive and controlling behaviour; two counts of false imprisonment; two counts of attempted rape; one count of attempted sexual assault by penetration; and one count of causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent.

The indictment alleges that some women were repeatedly raped, sexually assaulted and forced to perform degrading sex acts by Carrick, while one woman is said to have been falsely imprisoned in a cupboard under the stairs.

The trial begins next February at Southwark Crown Court.

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