Scotland Yard has launched a review of the vetting of hundreds of new recruits amid fears crucial background checks may have been bungled.
The country’s biggest police force is said to be urgently re-vetting over 300 people hired between 2016 and 2023 after it identified potential errors in the recruitment process.
Police recruits must be carefully vetted to ensure they are suitable for police work, including an assessment of any criminal background or connections, any outstanding debt which could leave them vulnerable to corruption and other background checks.
However, it is feared hundreds were wrongly hired with substandard or no vetting carried out, including many during the Conservative government’s so-called ‘uplift’ recruitment drive, The Guardian reports.
The Met is now carrying out an internal review into vetting and hiring practices between 2016 and April 2023, the force has confirmed.
In a statement, the Met said: “The Met is undertaking a review of historic vetting and hiring practices. This is part of ongoing wider work to raise professional standards across the organisation and improve trust and confidence with the public.”
The alleged recruitment failings are said to pre-date the tenure of the current Met Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, who took over from Dame Cressida Dick in 2022.
The force has been dogged by a string of scandals in recent years, including the rape and murder of Sarah Everard by serving Met officer Wayne Couzens, who used his warrant card to abduct her.
The force was branded institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic in a damning review by Baroness Louise Casey in 2023, commissioned in the wake of the shocking crime.
An interim report from her in 2022, focussed on the Met’s discipline and complaints system, warned officers suspected of serious crimes including sexual assault, domestic abuse and corruption had been allowed to stay in police ranks.
A separate damning inquiry last year called for a radical overhaul of police vetting and recruitment, after finding there was “nothing to stop another Wayne Couzens” from operating in plain sight.
The report, by Lady Elish Angiolini, found police missed eight chances to stop the sexual predator after people reported incidents of indecent exposure between 2008 and 2021.
Police chiefs were granted new powers to automatically dismiss rogue officers who fail to pass vetting in April this year. The powers came after Sir Mark warned the force had been left in a hopeless position when another officer – who was subject to multiple unproven allegations including rape – won a legal challenge over his removal from the force.
Police forces rapidly hired new staff between 2020 and 2023 in a recruitment drive known as the uplift programme under the Conservative government, who had cut 20,000 officers since 2010.