More than 130 officers and staff within the Metropolitan Police, including two convicted serial rapists, committed crimes or misconduct due to significant failures in the force’s vetting processes, a review has found.
David Carrick, one of the UK’s most prolific sex offenders, who received 37 life sentences, was improperly examined in 2017.
The checks failed to reveal an allegation of domestic abuse against him.
Cliff Mitchell, who carried out a “campaign of rape” on two victims over a nine-year period, has been allowed to join the force in 2020.
A vetting board, partly aimed at improving diversity, overturned an initial rejection despite an earlier charge that he had raped a child.
The findings highlight systemic vetting failures within Britain’s largest police force.
The 131 cases were revealed as part of an audit review which looked at the 10 years to the end of March 2023.
Other serious crimes committed by officers and staff include drug use, racism, violence and disruption.
The review published on Thursday found that thousands of police officers and staff were not properly vetted amid pressure during a national recruitment campaign from July 2019 to March 2023.
Cliff Mitchell, who carried out a ‘campaign of rape’ on two victims over nine years, has been allowed to join the force in 2020 (Metropolitan Police)
Senior officers at the Met chose not to meet national guidelines amid a scramble to find 4,557 recruits over a three-and-a-half-year period.
The deviations from standard practice meant that thousands of references were not checked, and shortcuts in vetting led to the recruitment and retention of some officers and staff who should not have been in the force and contributed to harm done by the police and damage to public trust, he said.
Under the Police Uplift Program (PUP), 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 frozen and therefore lost if targets were not met.
The report found: “The review identifies a series of decisions, some of which were taken in isolation, that all came together and inadvertently increased risk.”
In total, 5,073 officers and staff were not properly vetted, of which 4,528 had no special branch vetting, 431 had no Ministry of Defense (MoD) checks, and 114 had a vetting refusal overturned by an internal Met panel.
Another 3,338 that were due for vetting renewal had only limited controls.
The Met estimates that around 1,200 people who joined the force could have had their checks rejected under normal practices, out of around 27,300 applications.
Separately, 17,355 officers and staff did not have their references checked properly, if at all, between 2018 and April 2022.
The Met has not checked every one of these files, but estimates that around 250 would not have got a job if their references had been checked.
The 131 cases were revealed as part of an audit review which looked at the 10 years to the end of March 2023 (PA)
Some of the “deviations” in vetting practices led to the detention of individuals who contributed to “police harm” and damaged public trust, the report said.
The “deviations” identified included:
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Automatic transfer of officers from other forces without renewing their current verification
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Not checked ex-service personnel against MoD records between at least May 2020 and September 2021
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No special branch index or anti-terrorism research between at least May 2020 to October 2020
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Acceptance of past clearance for ex-employees who have left the Met for up to a year
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Reduced checks for officer and staff renewals, including a time when the vetting unit only looked at the national police computer instead of a full vetting review
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In around April 2019 some newly recruited officers joined the force before receiving national security clearance
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Internal processes were streamlined so that many staff security checks on Met special constables and internal staff were removed
The report also found that a since-abolished vetting panel, which aimed to address disproportionality in the workforce, overturned decisions to reject the vetting of 114 officers and staff, of whom 25 went on to commit misconduct or were charged with a crime.
The review said senior officers faced political pressure and had to meet recruitment targets or lose funding to other forces.
Since current Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley took over the role in September 2022, 1,500 officers have been sacked in what has been billed as a bid to clean up the force. He was also a high-ranking Met officer between 2011 and 2018.
The report said that out of 730 audit cases reviewed, 39 officers and staff had to be re-checked, with 23 approved.
Meta Commissioner Mark Rowley has tried to clean up the force since taking up the role in September 2022 (AP)
One officer resigned, another was fired for a different reason, six cases are still ongoing, and eight were referred to potentially face dismissal.
The report concluded: “There have been deviations from policy and practice, overconfidence in the ability to recruit at scale and a lack of resources in assessing increased risk.
“It is extremely difficult to establish a chain of causation between the changes in the system and the potential harm caused to the public and other members of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS).
“However, it is known that the scale and impact of these deviations varied, from some tolerable and minor in nature, to those that have a more substantive impact, including the likely recruitment and retention of individuals who went on to cause harm through crime and misconduct – events that undermined public confidence in the MPS.”
The Met says it has taken action to clean up the workforce and tighten vetting standards.
Assistant commissioner Rachel Williams said: “In publishing this report today, we are being open and transparent about past vetting and recruitment practices which led, in some cases, to the wrong people joining the Met.
“We have been honest with London on many occasions about previous failings in our professional standards approach. This review is part of our ongoing work to demand the highest standards across the Met so that the public can have trust and confidence in our officers.
“We found that some historical practices did not meet the enhanced hiring and vetting standards we have today. We identified these issues ourselves and quickly fixed them while ensuring that any risk to the public was managed appropriately and effectively.
“It is important to emphasize that the Met recruits hundreds of officers and staff every year – the vast majority of exemplary character who are dedicated to protecting the public.”
Paula Dodds, president of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said: “Today’s report shows a farcical situation in which reaching a numerical target of recruits has taken precedence over normal checks and balances.
“The good, brave and hardworking colleagues we represent are the first to say that the small minority of officers who are unfit to serve should not be in the police service.