How on earth does a police officer rape women for 14 years before anyone notices?
PC Alan Greer, 47, killed himself in May after his arrest in April. Now we learn he carried out a string of rapes and violent sexual attacks on at least nine women. Some were so brutal they amounted to attempted murder. The first known one hit in 2012 in Glasgow, right after the victim had reported another crime to him. Think about that. She turns to the police for help. She gets a predator in uniform.
This isn't a one-off failure. It's the predictable result of a force more worried about looking good than keeping women safe. Vetting? Oversight? Accountability? They sound like fancy words on a training slide. In practice they mean nothing when a serving cop can hunt victims on duty for over a decade.
The human cost nobody wants to count
Nine confirmed victims. Investigations continue to find more. Each one carries scars that won't fade. Husbands, children, parents left picking up the pieces. Taxpayers foot the bill for the inquiries, the payouts, the eroded trust. And still senior officers will trot out the usual lines about learning lessons and improved procedures.
How many times have we heard that script? How many more women need to be attacked before someone admits the rot goes deeper than one man?
Ordinary people expect police to protect them from monsters, not employ them.
The news desk calls this a failure of vetting, oversight and accountability. Fair enough. But let's not dress it up in polite language. This is a public institution that handed a badge and powers to a serial rapist and somehow never noticed. Or if they did notice warning signs, they looked the other way.
