Serial rapist David Carrick among Met Police officers not properly vetted before joining force

More than 130 officers and staff Metropolitan PoliceA review found that several men, including two convicted serial rapists, committed crimes or committed misconduct due to significant failures in the police force’s investigative processes.

David CarrickOne of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders, who was sentenced to 37 life sentences, was improperly examined in 2017.

Checks failed to uncover an allegation of domestic violence against him.

Cliff MitchellHe was allowed to join the organization in 2020, which carried out a “rape campaign” against two victims for nine years.

A review panel aimed in part to increase diversity overturned the initial denial despite an accusation that he had previously raped a child.

The findings highlight systematic review failures in Britain’s largest police force.

The 131 cases were revealed as part of the review review, which examined the 10 years to the end of March 2023.

Other serious crimes committed by officers and staff include drug use, racism, violence and insults.

The review, published on Thursday, found that thousands of police officers and staff were not properly checked due to pressure during the national recruitment campaign from July 2019 to March 2023.

Senior officials at the Met chose not to comply with national rules amid a drive to recruit 4,557 new members over a three-and-a-half-year period.

It said deviations from standard practice meant thousands of references were not checked, and investigative shortcuts led to the recruitment and retention of some officers and staff who should not have been in the force and contributed to police harm and damage to public confidence.

Under the Police Promotion Program (PUP), forces in England and Wales were expected to recruit 20,000 police officers over three-and-a-half years to replace those cut during austerity, and funding was capped and therefore lost if targets were not met.

“The review identifies a range of decisions, some taken in isolation, which all combined to unintentionally increase risk,” the report concludes.

In total, 5,073 officers and personnel were not properly vetted; of these, 4,528 had no special branch review check, 431 had no Ministry of Defense (MoD) check, and 114 had review refusals overturned by the Met’s internal panel.

The other 3,338 people who needed to renew their review had only limited checks.

The Met estimates that of around 27,300 applications, under normal practice, around 1,200 people who joined the force may have had their reviews rejected.

Separately, between 2018 and April 2022, the references of 17,355 officers and staff were not properly checked, or even checked at all.

The Met did not check each of these files, but estimates around 250 people would not have been able to find work if their references had been checked.

The report said some “deviations” in review practices had led to the retention of people who contributed to “police harm” and undermined public trust.

The “deviations” identified included:

• Automatic transfer of officers from other forces without renewing existing vetting

• Failure to check former service personnel against DoD records between at least May 2020 and September 2021

• No research on specific branch or counter-terrorism indices between at least May 2020 and October 2020

• Acknowledgment of past leaves for former employees who have left the Met for up to one year

• Reduced checks on officer and staff renewals, including a period when the investigative unit only looked at the police’s national computer rather than a full vetting review

• Around April 2019, some new officers joined the force without obtaining national security clearance

• Internal processes have been streamlined and many personnel security checks on Met special constables and internal staff have been removed.

The report also revealed that the review panel, which was intended to tackle disproportionality in the workforce and has since been abolished, overturned decisions to refuse review of 114 officers and staff, 25 of whom continued to engage in misconduct or were charged with an offence.

The review said senior officers faced political pressure and were forced to meet recruitment targets or lose funding to other forces.

Since current Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley takes over in September 2022, 1,500 police officers have been sacked in what is billed as a bid to clean up the force. He was also a high-ranking Met officer between 2011 and 2018.

The report stated that of the 730 cases examined, 39 officers and staff required rechecking and 23 were cleared.

One officer resigned, another was fired for a different reason, six lawsuits are ongoing and eight are said to be potentially at risk of termination.

The report concluded: “There were deviations from policy and practice, overconfidence in the ability to recruit at scale and a lack of resources to examine the increased risk.

“It is extremely difficult to establish a chain of causality between system changes and potential harm to the public and other members of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS).

“However, the scale and impact of these deviations are known to vary, some of a tolerable and minor nature, to those having a more significant impact, including the recruitment and possibly retention of individuals who cause harm through crime and abuse – events that undermine public confidence in the MPS.”

The Met said it was taking action to clean up its workforce and tighten inspection standards.

Assistant Commissioner Rachel Williams said: “In publishing this report today, we are being open and transparent about background checks and recruitment practices that, in some cases, have led to unsuitable people joining the Met.

“We have been honest with Londoners on many occasions about previous shortcomings in our approach to professional standards. This review is part of our ongoing work to demand the highest standards across the Met so the public can have confidence in our officers.

“We found that some past practices did not meet the strengthened recruitment and review standards we have today. We identified these issues ourselves and quickly remedied them, ensuring any risks to the public were managed accurately and effectively.

“It is important to emphasize that the Met recruits hundreds of officers and staff each year, the overwhelming majority of whom are exemplary characters who are committed to protecting the public.”

Paula Dodds, chief executive of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said: “Today’s report shows a ludicrous situation where hitting a numerical target of recruits takes precedence over normal checks and balances.

“The good, brave and hard-working colleagues we represent are the first to say that a small minority of police officers who are unfit for duty should not be on the force.