Two rapists among Met officers not properly vetted

Two serial rapists were among 131 officers and staff in the Metropolitan Police who committed crimes or misconduct after they were not properly vetted, a review has found.

David Carrick, one of the UK's worst sex offenders, and Cliff Mitchell, who carried out a "campaign of rape" on two victims, were among the police officers who were not properly checked.

The cases were revealed in a vetting review of the 10 years up to the end of March 2023. Other serious crimes committed by officers and staff included drug use, violent attacks and affray.

Assistant Commissioner Rachel Williams acknowledged that the "public will be really concerned" by the lapse in vetting procedures.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said: "Abandoning vetting checks on officers was a dereliction of the Met's duty to keep London safe.

"I have asked the Chief Inspector of Constabulary to carry out an inspection as I seek to restore trust in the force's ability to protect and serve the public."

Carrick, who was given 37 life sentences for his crimes, was not properly vetted in 2017, with checks failing to reveal an allegation of domestic abuse against him.

Mitchell was allowed to join the force in 2020 after a vetting panel, which partly aimed to improve diversity, overturned a decision to reject him from the police despite a previous accusation of raping a child.

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

Senior officers at the Met chose not to meet national guidelines amid a scramble to find more than 4,500 recruits.

The deviations from standard practice meant thousands of references were not checked, and shortcuts in vetting led to there being some officers and staff who should not have been in the force. This contributed to "police-perpetrated harm" and damaged public trust, the review said.

Under the Police Uplift Programme, forces in England and Wales were expected to recruit 20,000 officers within three and a half years to replace those cut during austerity, and funding was ringfenced and lost if targets were not met.

"Senior leaders embarked on an assertive approach towards hiring and vetting practices in order to meet what would become unachievable recruitment targets and grow the Metropolitan Police Service's (MPS) workforce at pace," the report stated.

"The focus appeared to be on speed and output; this unintentionally compromised integrity."

The report said 5,073 officers and staff were not properly vetted, of whom 4,528 had no Special Branch vetting checks, 431 had no Ministry of Defence checks and 114 had a vetting refusal overturned by a Met internal panel.

Another 3,338 who were due for vetting renewal underwent only limited checks.

The Met estimated that about 1,200 people who joined the force may have had their vetting refused under normal practices, out of around 27,300 applications.

Separately, 17,355 officers and staff did not have their references properly checked, if at all, between 2018 and April 2022.

The Met has not checked each of these files, but estimates that about 250 of these employees would not have got a job if their references had been checked.

The review found that senior officers had faced political pressure and had to meet recruitment targets or lose funding to other forces.

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

Since Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley took on the UK's top policing job in September 2022, about 1,500 officers have been sacked in what has been dubbed as a clean-up of the force.

Williams said: "In publishing this report today, we are being open and transparent about past vetting and recruitment practices that led, in some cases, to unsuitable people joining the Met.

"We have been honest with Londoners on many occasions about previous shortcomings in our professional standards approach.

"We found that some historical practices did not meet the strengthened hiring and vetting standards we have today. We identified these issues ourselves and have fixed them quickly while making sure any risk to the public has been properly and effectively managed."

She added: "The Met recruits hundreds of officers and staff every year, the overwhelming majority of exemplary character who are dedicated to protecting the public."

Paula Dodds, chairwoman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said: "Today's report illustrates a farcical situation in which hitting a numerical target of recruits has taken precedence over normal checks and balances.

"The good, brave and hard-working colleagues we represent are the first to say that the small minority of officers who are not fit to serve should not be in the police service."