It hit me hard when I saw just how bad some cops can become

STRONG emotions are triggered when Will Mellor talks about the new series of Cops Gone Bad.

-  EMMELINE SAUNDERS

Particularly chilling for him is the story of sex beast Adam Provan, who is serving a 16-year jail sentence.

The pervert who had raped a fellow Met officer years earlier pretended he was 22 to get a dad's permission to take a girl to the cinema.

But instead of seeing a film, the 31-year-old PC drove Lauren Taylor, 16, to a country park and raped her.

He then bought her a milkshake at McDonald's and told her how to lie to her parents about their date.

Later, he drove her to a children's playground and raped her again.

It took Lauren six years to report the fiend and she waived her right to anonymity to encourage others to nail their abusers.

It is one of many shocking cases featured in the second series of Will's programme about monsters in police uniform.

"That episode landed harder because I saw my 16-year-old daughter in that girl," he says.

"Lauren found the courage to speak.

But what really hit me is her dad had said Provan was safe for her to go out with.

"When she said, 'I didn't say anything to my dad because I didn't want him to blame himself', that cut me in half and choked me up. I went home and hugged my daughter that night."

Will who has daughter Renee, 16, and son Jayden, 20, with wife Michelle - adds: "I don't know how I'd cope with that. And I said in the programme, 'I'd want to kill him'. It's a visceral reaction but it's a human one.

"All you want to do as a parent is protect your kids."

The first series of Cops Gone Bad featured two of the most notorious: Wayne Couzens, who is serving life for raping and murdering Sarah Everard in March 2021, and serial rapist David Carrick, who got 30 years in 2023. Will says the two scandals eroded public trust in the police because both men should have been stopped much earlier - like Provan and many others.