British

An investigation has found that a police officer who died by suicide in May carried out a series of rapes and attempted murders targeting women over a period of at least fourteen years while serving as an officer. PC Alan Greer’s earliest known victim was a woman he raped inside her own home in Glasgow in 2012, shortly after she had contacted police to report an unrelated crime. The woman came forward late last year to report the assault, a disclosure that triggered one of the largest anti corruption investigations in Police Scotland’s history. Detectives have since identified eight additional victims, five of them sex workers who were attacked while Greer was off duty. Investigators have also established that Greer paid for sex from hundreds of women throughout his career and expect further victims to come forward as the inquiry continues. Assistant Chief Constable Lynn Ratcliff, who is leading the investigation, described the findings as deeply disturbing. She said the officer had abused his position of authority by returning to target a woman he had first encountered through his police duties. Ratcliff said the woman’s decision to come forward and speak with investigators became the catalyst that launched the wider inquiry. Her confirmation of the investigation followed months of reporting into Greer’s conduct. A source close to the case said the scale and nature of the case draws comparisons to the conviction of Wayne Couzens, the London police officer sentenced for the rape and murder of Sarah Everard five years ago, suggesting the Greer case could represent a similarly significant reckoning for Police Scotland. Greer was born in Australia in 1978 and moved to the United Kingdom at age six. He joined Strathclyde Police in 2009, and continued serving after the force merged into Police Scotland in 2013, building what appeared to be an unblemished seventeen year career. He initially worked as a uniformed response officer in Glasgow before moving into an officer safety training role based in Coatbridge around 2016, a position that involved training probationary officers and refreshing the skills of more experienced colleagues. Greer was 47 years old when he died in May, and was married with a child. Those close to him, including his family and police colleagues, are understood to have had no knowledge of his pattern of violence. Senior officers have said there were no clear opportunities that would have allowed the force to identify his offending earlier. The investigation traces back to a woman in her late thirties who walked into a Glasgow police station late last year to report the assault. She described how, in 2012, she had called officers to her home after a disturbance, only for one of the responding officers to later attack her. Cases involving police officers who abuse their positions of trust to target victims, particularly vulnerable women and sex workers, have prompted broader scrutiny of vetting and oversight procedures within UK police forces in recent years. Investigations of this kind often expose gaps in how forces monitor off duty conduct and respond to complaints against serving officers, and they tend to renew public pressure for independent oversight mechanisms capable of identifying patterns of abuse before they escalate over many years. The investigation into Greer’s offending remains active, and Police Scotland has said it anticipates identifying more victims as the inquiry proceeds.