Police still make ‘terrible’ recruitment, watchdog warns
olice are still making “terrible” decisions about who they let into their ranks, a monitor said on Thursday, warning that met miss some key objectives to clear rogue officers and stop others from joining.
Police Inspectorate Y.M, Fire and Rescue Services said they discovered new “You’re not serious, are you really letting this person in?” cases of recruitment of unsuitable people during force checks, including the Met.
It said examples included a recruit with “a history of allegations of domestic violence against multiple partners,” another who faced criminal charges of dishonesty and others who were mistakenly cleared for background checks despite members families were jailed for drug dealing in one case and serious sex offenses in another.
Another case of illegal recruitment involved an individual being recruited by the Firearms Licensing Police despite havingconnection with organized crime that they had hidden. The watchdog added that other “horrendous mistakes” still occur in the process of reviewing decisions.
“Some decisions … we just didn’t see them make them. You just look at it and think, still, after all the fuss that’s been made about it,” said Matt Parr, a police inspector who prepared the findings, which were presented in a letter to the Home Secretary on Thursday.
Mr Parr said that while he was not identifying new vetting failures in individual forces, the Met had “well-documented problems with the size of the vetting unit, the work it does at the moment”.
Metropolitan Police officer David Carrick has been exposed as one of Britain’s most wanted sex offenders
/ PA MediaHe added that Londoners should also “prepare themselves that as the Met gets cleaned up, there will be more bad news before it gets better”, although he insisted it should be seen as “a sign of progress, not a sign that how deep he’s stuck.
A warning of continuing problems in police vetting was sounded on Thursday when the Inspector General of Police released an update on how the force responded to a damning report published last year which warned it was too easy for the wrong people to join and stay in the force.
In a progress report, the inspectorate said 73 per cent of the nine recommendations made by each force to improve vetting had either already been implemented or would be implemented by the relevant deadline for each target.
It said 90 percent of the 19 accompanying recommendations for each force to strengthen the fight against corruption and malfeasance would also be met or implemented.
But he warns that while the Met has already implemented most of the changes it needs, it is on track to miss some of the targets, giving the force a red alert for related failures.
That sentence will be a blow to the power that exists still reeling from Baroness Casey’s damning report calling them institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic and a number of scandals, including the killing of Sara Everard by serving officer Wayne Cousins and David Carrick has been exposed as one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders.
This is despite the efforts of Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley root out rogue officers.
Sarah Everard was raped and murdered by Met officer Wayne Cousins
/ PA MediaSir Mark has admitted that there are hundreds of officers who should not be employed in the ranks of the Met and has repeatedly spoken since his arrival at Scotland Yard of his determination to tackle the problem.
But Mr Parr said on Thursday that forces, including the Met, which he has been inspecting in recent months, were still making some serious mistakes in checking decisions that mirrored the problems identified in his previous report in last year.
“We had some terrible things in this report, you’re not serious, you’re really letting these people down, [cases] and we still found a few of them,” he told the Standard. “At the end of the day, it’s the people who make the decisions about whether we let that person in or not.”
“An applicant for a police officer’s firearms license was found to be associated with an organized crime group. He didn’t disclose it, the police said they did a check, but we couldn’t find any records they had, so they gave him permission, hired him, no evidence they thought about the risks. These things still happen.
“Mistakes still happen. There are still some decisions that we just didn’t see them make. You just look at it and really think about it, still, after all the fuss that’s been made about it.”
Mr Parr said he could not say the Met would ever get rid of rogue officers or staff because of the size of the force and that there would be “bad news” in the coming months because of the purge being carried out by Sir. Mark Rowley.
“We have to prepare for the fact that as the Met goes through the clean-up process, there will be more bad news before it starts to get better. I would encourage people to see this as a sign of progress rather than a sign of how deeply mired it is. It’s not good for reputation, public trust and recruitment, but it’s what they just have to do.”
Thursday’s warning about continuing vetting problems followed a damning report by the Inspectorate of Police last November, which concluded it was “too easy for the wrong people to join and stay in the police force”.
It highlighted cases of misrepresentation of officers with criminal convictions and links to organized crime, and raised further concerns that officers were allowed to transfer from one unit to another despite having a troubling history , complaints or allegations of misconduct.
The report also found that “a culture of misogyny, sexism and predatory behavior towards female police officers, staff and members of the public still exists and is even widespread in many forces”, and that the Met was among the forces infected by this attitude.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/met-police-vetting-rogue-officers-mark-rowley-watchdog-wayne-couzens-sarah-everard-b1080353.html
