A Police Scotland officer's dark secret has been uncovered, revealing a 14-year reign of terror involving multiple victims.
In a bombshell revelation Police Scotland has uncovered the horrifying double life of one of their own officers. PC Alan Greer, who took his own life in May, was a violent rapist who terrorized women over at least 14 years.
His first known victim was a woman he raped in her Glasgow home in 2012 after she had called the police for help.
The woman reported the sex attack by Greer late last year, triggering one of Police Scotland’s largest anti-corruption inquiries.
Detectives have since identified nine victims, five of whom were sex workers attacked while Greer was off duty. The investigation has revealed that Greer used hundreds of prostitutes throughout his police career, and more victims are expected to come forward.
The Trigger: A Brave Woman’s Testimony
Towards the end of last year, a woman in her late thirties walked into a Glasgow police station to report a crime. She revealed that in 2012, she had attempted to report a disturbance at her home, and that uniformed officers had attended. The officers took her statement and left, but a few hours later, one of the officers returned alone, forced her into a sexual act, and raped her.
After reporting the incident last year, the woman seemed to disengage from further inquiries. The case was handed to the anti-corruption unit (ACU), who secured a statement from her by April. This statement allowed detectives to identify the call she made in 2012 and the officers who had attended. They discovered that, in the weeks after the 2012 attack, one of those officers had repeatedly monitored the woman’s crime file on the police computer for updates, even checking it while on annual leave.
The Investigation: Uncovering a Pattern of Abuse
A critical incident was declared, and a gold commander was installed. Anti-corruption detectives obtained Greer’s mobile phone number, which had not been held on his personnel file. Only his home number had been retained by police. The mobile number was put through police intelligence databases, revealing a single piece of intelligence dating back to 2018 linked to that number but with no name attached.
The intelligence had come from a Glasgow sex worker and indicated that the owner of that phone number was a customer who had been violent. There was no indication the number belonged to a police officer. However, this information gave detectives a second strand of evidence and grounds to monitor every keystroke that Greer made on police computers.
They discovered that Greer had been searching the police system for traces of a complaint from a phone number, which detectives identified as belonging to a Glasgow sex worker. This was a breakthrough, as it revealed their suspect repeating the pattern from 2012. They now had enough evidence to present to a sheriff, who authorized a warrant to search Greer’s home and seize his devices.
The Aftermath: A Legacy of Violence
At dawn on 24 April, officers raided Greer’s family home in what was described as a ‘day of executive action.’ Greer appeared shocked to be arrested on suspicion of the 2012 rape. Seven mobile phones and a laptop were seized, and Greer was brought into a police station to be fingerprinted and have his DNA taken. He was not interviewed but was suspended from duty and released pending further inquiries.
It was only when officers started to look at his phones that the scale of Greer’s offending began to emerge. Thousands of graphic videos and images were recovered, revealing that Greer had used hundreds of prostitutes throughout his police career. Officers have already identified five sex workers who have been seriously sexually assaulted. If Greer were alive, police would have sought charges of attempted murder in some of the cases due to the level of violence used.
Three other victims have been identified, including two female police officers Greer had taken inappropriate photographs of while they were training. As Greer’s serial offending emerged, detectives ensured his family were not in danger. Social work officers, accompanied by local police, visited his home on 5 May. Greer died by suicide the following day.
In the days that followed, police announced Greer’s death on the force’s internal communications platform, stating he died while suspended and under criminal investigation. A source close to the investigation described it as ‘Police Scotland’s Wayne Couzens moment,’ referring to the former Metropolitan Police officer serving a whole-life sentence for the rape and murder of Sarah Everard.
Assistant Chief Constable Lynn Ratcliff, gold commander for the investigation, emphasized that the comparison was unhelpful and that no red flags were missed. She insisted that the vetting landscape in Police Scotland is ‘markedly different’ from when Greer joined Strathclyde Police in 2009 and that Greer would not pass vetting checks today.
There are still thousands of images recovered from Greer’s devices that need to be sifted through, and it is understood he used multiple pseudonyms and phones to carry out his sexual transactions. Specialist officers have been drafted in from other units to bolster the anti-corruption unit, and the inquiry is expected to take many months. Greer will never be brought to justice, but police are determined to establish the full picture of his offending.
ACC Ratcliff urged anyone who believes they may have been a victim of Alan Greer to come forward. ‘They can be assured that we will listen, and that we will investigate, and we will do our best to make sure that they get the support that they need going forward,’ she said.
