Ex-Met inspector lied about wife's death in Barbados hotel, BBC Panorama reveals
Warren Arter, investigated for sexually exploiting crime victims, gave contradictory accounts of wife Rebekah's death at a Barbados hotel in June 2024.
Former Met detective gave conflicting stories after wife found dead in blood-stained Barbados hotel room
A former Metropolitan Police detective inspector who was investigated for sexually exploiting vulnerable crime victims later lied about the circumstances of his wife's death in a Barbados hotel room, BBC Panorama has established.
Warren Arter, 54, first encountered Rebekah Arter in 2006 when she reported domestic abuse to the Met. He subsequently pursued a relationship with her and moved in shortly after. Over the following decade and beyond, he subjected her to sexual and domestic abuse, coercive control and drugging — conduct the BBC says it has seen video evidence of.
Rebekah, aged 47, was found dead in June 2024 at the luxury O2 Beach Club in Barbados. The cause of her death has never been formally established. A coroner in the UK later recorded an open verdict.
Contradictory accounts and suspicious behaviour
Hotel staff who spoke to Panorama say Arter behaved suspiciously both before and after Rebekah's death. Two members of staff entered the room after Arter called reception to say his wife was unwell. Both say it was immediately apparent she was already dead.
Andrew, a security guard on duty that night, told Panorama he had to physically prevent Arter from leaving the hotel to attend a nearby street party before emergency services arrived.
"So I'm asking him, why do you need to go when you have a bigger issue here?" Andrew recalled. Arter responded: "Oh, I just need to clear my head."
Andrew says Arter then performed what he described as "crocodile tears" and conducted performative CPR, despite Rebekah's lips already being blue. Arter's account of what had happened kept shifting. Initially he told Andrew that Rebekah had fallen near a chest of drawers — but her body was found some distance away, near the kitchen area. When Barbadian police arrived, Andrew says he heard Arter tell officers he had simply found her that way.
There were bloodstains on the bed, the wall and in the living room area, but no visible sign of a head injury, according to Andrew — despite Arter's claim that she had fallen and banged her head.
"He was just trying to find the right story that fits and none of them added up," Andrew told Panorama.
Arter also recorded a video of the room and sent it to family and friends in the UK. In the footage, he can be heard saying of the stains: "It looks like chocolate but it's blood."
Further contradictions in messages to family
Messages Arter sent to Rebekah's friends and family shortly after her death offered still more conflicting explanations — that she had "choked", that her drink had been spiked, or that he had simply woken up and found her dead after they had both been asleep for 18 hours.
Rebekah's daughter-in-law, Lacey, told Panorama: "He was outright lying. He was forgetting what he was telling people."
Rebekah's son Elliot and Lacey have both said publicly for the first time that the Metropolitan Police failed her.
Failures by both Barbadian and British authorities
According to BBC Panorama, Barbadian authorities failed to preserve evidence at the scene, did not conduct forensic tests, and did not formally interview hotel staff — including Andrew, who gave an initial statement but was never called back for a formal interview.
Rebekah's organs were described by sources as having been inexplicably "chopped up" by a pathologist in Barbados, further compromising any potential investigation.
Four days after Rebekah's death, a senior Metropolitan Police officer from its Gold Command was briefed about the incident, given Arter's known alleged offending. Despite this, the Met did not send detectives to Barbados. The force told the BBC it took that decision because no allegation of criminality had been made.
Rebekah's family requested Met assistance. That request was not acted upon.
One of the Barbadian police officers who attended the hotel room that night still had a photograph of Rebekah's dead body on his phone at the time Panorama spoke to him, and refused to share information with journalists without payment. The Barbados police service did not respond to a request for comment.
Arter's history of alleged abuse and suspension
Arter was placed in charge of a south-east London unit investigating rape cases in 2009, three years after he had begun his relationship with Rebekah. He was subsequently suspended by the Met and investigated by its watchdog, the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC), over his conduct towards eight alleged victims — but was never convicted of any offence related to those allegations.
During the seven years he remained suspended, Arter continued to receive his full detective inspector salary. He was eventually dismissed in 2023 for drug offences.
After returning from Barbados following Rebekah's death, Arter was arrested on suspicion of abusing another woman. He took his own life at HMP Wandsworth shortly afterwards.
Hotel security supervisor Kenneth told the BBC that Arter had appeared "controlling" and "didn't allow Rebekah to do anything on her own" during their stay.
BBC Panorama's documentary, The Predator in the Police, is available on BBC iPlayer from 17 November and aired on BBC One the same evening.
Source: BBC News