A damning internal review has revealed that the Metropolitan Police failed to carry out proper vetting on thousands of officers and staff between 2013 and 2023, allowing serial rapists including David Carrick and Cliff Mitchell to remain in the force. The Home Office stated that the Met estimated more than 5,000 officers and staff were recruited without the necessary checks, and it could not confirm whether pre-employment checks were performed on around 17,000 individuals.
The review found that 1,400 officers who should have been flagged by vetting were left with police powers, and 131 officers committed criminal or misconduct offences ranging from rape to drug crimes. Among the most egregious cases was David Carrick, who used his status as a Met officer to silence victims and was convicted of 48 rapes. Despite a series of complaints, he passed revetting in 2017 and subsequently committed dozens of offences.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood condemned the failures, saying: 'Abandoning vetting checks on officers was a dereliction of the Met’s duty to keep London safe.' She commissioned HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary to inspect the Met's recruitment and vetting practices. The Met's report attributed the lapses to a 'highly pressurised environment' and pressure to recruit quickly under the previous government's police uplift programme.
Assistant Commissioner Rachel Williams acknowledged the force's past shortcomings, stating: 'We identified these issues ourselves and have fixed them quickly while making sure any risk to the public has been properly and effectively managed.' The Met confirmed that some decision-makers from that period are still employed, but noted that standards have been significantly tightened, with 1,500 officers ousted since Sir Mark Rowley became commissioner in 2022.
