Police Recruits From 'Crime Families' Slipped Through Vetting, UK Watchdog Finds

Public confidence in the police, especially among women, has slumped since the kidnapping and murder of Londoner Sarah Everard by an officer serving in an elite unit in the capital's force in 2021. Since then, more officers have been accused of sexual misconduct.

Hundreds of unsuitable candidates may have slipped through vetting and joined the UK's police forces, according to a government watchdog.

The findings of the review of His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) - conducted in the wake of the kidnap, rape and murder of Londoner Sarah Everard by serving officer Wayne Couzens in March 2021 - were published on Wednesday.

The inquiry reviewed the records of more than 11,000 officers and other staff across eight police forces, including 725 vetting files and 264 misconduct investigations.

In 131 cases, the inspectorate found that vetting decisions were "questionable at best", and explicitly disagreed with 68 of those approvals.

In some cases, previous crimes by applicants were disregarded as "one-off" incidents, and recruits whose relations had records of "extensive criminality" were allowed to join forces. The review also found that officers with a history of complaints or misconduct allegations against them were allowed to transfer to other forces.

"It is too easy for the wrong people both to join and stay in the police," warned Inspector of Constabulary Matt Parr. "If the police are to rebuild public trust and protect their own female officers and staff, vetting must be much more rigorous and sexual misconduct taken more seriously."

Parr estimated that over the previous three to four years, unsuitable recruits numbered "certainly in the hundreds, if not low thousands... it's not in the tens, it's at least in the hundreds."

Although the government has pledged to recruit 20,000 more police officers by March 2023, Parr said that "cannot be allowed to act as an excuse" for lax vetting procedures.

Home Secretary Suella Braverman said it was "disappointing" that forces were "taking unnecessary risks with vetting".

"I have been clear that culture and standards in the police need to change and the public's trust in policing restored," Braverman said. "Chief constables must learn these lessons and act on the findings of this report as a matter of urgency."

Couzens, a member of the Metropolitan Police Service's armed VIP protection unit, abducted Everard on Clapham Common under the pretext of arresting her for a breach of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, despite the fact that he was not in uniform.

He drove Everard in a rented car to near his home in Kent before raping and murdering her, then hid her body before returning to partially burn it and dump her remains in a woodland pond.

It later emerged that four charges of indecent exposure had been approved against Couzens - the last one just days before he murdered Everard - in the months before the crime that saw him jailed.

In October 2021, a drag performer told media he recognized Couzens as a man who sexually assaulted him at a pub in Deal, Kent, where he was performing in 2018.

Within days of Couzens receiving a rare whole-life jail sentence in October 2021, two more Met officers had been charged with rape.