Wandsworth: Met police officer ‘told victim that the rape was planned’

The alleged victim said Cliff Mitchell approached her with a knife in September 2023 before tying her up with cable ties and putting tape over her mouth.

In a tearful police interview that was played to a jury at London’s Croydon Crown Court, she alleged that Mitchell threatened he would kill her.

The tape over her mouth kept on slipping as she cried but Mitchell just kept on reapplying it, she recalled.

The woman, who said she feels like she has “just blurred everything out” from that day, told the officers: “He told me to be quiet and not to scream.”

The woman said at first she could not believe what was happening and told him to leave.

She added: “He said ‘that’s not happening. I know how victims act. You would say anything to stay alive’.”

She also told officers: “He kept saying ‘I’m smarter than you think. This has been pre-planned’.

“He just kept threatening me.”

Mitchell, 24, of Wandsworth, south-west London, is charged with of 13 counts of rape against two victims, breaching a non-molestation order and two counts of kidnapping. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The woman alleges that Mitchell forced her and another person to get into his car and she managed to escape by saying she had to get out of the vehicle because she felt sick.

She lost her shoes as she ran from the car.

The court has heard that she was seen running through traffic by members of the public.

In an earlier police interview, the woman said: “I just ran and no-one would help.

“He chased after me with the knife and said ‘come back to the car otherwise I’m going to kill (the other person in the car) right now’.

“I was so scared.”

A passer-by noticed what was going on and managed to get her in her vehicle, the court heard.

Mitchell was a PC in the Met’s West Area Basic Command Unit.

Prosecutor Catherine Farrelly has told the jury that Mitchell was “a serving officer with the Metropolitan Police” during the “latter part” of the alleged offences.

He was suspended from the force after the allegations came to light and has since been dismissed.

The charges against Mitchell include six counts of rape against a girl, including three when she was under 13 years old.

Among these six charges of rape are three counts that state there were a total of at least 30 other occasions where the girl may have been similarly assaulted.

All of these alleged offences took place between January 2014 and April 2017.

Mitchell is also charged with seven counts of rape against a woman between April 2020 and September 2023, with breaching a non-molestation order and two counts of kidnapping.

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