PC Alan Greer, a Police Scotland officer who died by suicide in May, spent 14 years raping at least nine women - including one he met when she called the police for help. Apparently, the uniform doesn't always make the man.

Greer's reign of terror only unraveled when his first known victim, a woman he raped in her Glasgow home in 2012 after she reported a crime, came forward late last year. That prompted one of Police Scotland's biggest anti-corruption inquiries, which has so far unearthed eight more victims, five of whom were sex workers. Greer, it turns out, was a frequent customer of sex workers - hundreds, according to a BBC Disclosure investigation - and police expect to find more victims.

Assistant Chief Constable Lynn Ratcliff, who led the investigation, described the evidence as 'truly shocking.' No kidding. Greer, born in Australia in 1978, joined Strathclyde Police in 2009 and had 17 years of apparently spotless service. He was 47 when he died, leaving a wife and child who, along with his colleagues, were apparently oblivious to his violent double life.

Senior officers insist there were no missed opportunities to catch him sooner. But a source close to the investigation told the BBC the case resembles that of Met Police officer Wayne Couzens, who raped and murdered Sarah Everard - another example of the police failing to police themselves.

The investigation began when the 2012 victim's case was handed to the anti-corruption unit. Detectives found that Greer had repeatedly checked her crime file on police computers weeks after the attack. They traced his mobile number, which flagged a 2018 intelligence report from a Glasgow sex worker about a violent customer, though the report had no name attached. This gave them grounds to monitor his computer keystrokes, where they found he'd been searching for complaints from a sex worker's phone number.

A warrant to search his home yielded thousands of graphic videos and images, revealing his extensive use of sex workers. Officers are still sifting through the files but have already identified five sex workers who were seriously sexually assaulted and two female police officers he photographed inappropriately during training. If Greer were alive, police say they would have sought attempted murder charges in some cases due to the violence.

As the investigation closed in, social workers and local police visited Greer's home on May 5 to check on his family's safety. He died by suicide the next day. Ratcliff says no red flags were missed, but conceded Greer wouldn't pass vetting checks today. Too little, too late, as usual.