The Metropolitan Police is conducting an internal investigation into the vetting of over 300 new recruits who may not have been sufficiently checked for criminal convictions.
Scotland Yard is looking into whether substandard or no vetting was used to check if hundreds of recruits had criminal convictions, cautions or criminal associations, or whether their integrity was at risk due to being in debt, as revealed by the Guardian.
The Met confirmed they are conducting an internal review into the scale and severity of the potential error as part of ongoing work looking back on vetting and hiring processed from 2016 to April 2023.
Concerns stem from recruitment carried out by the Met from 2016 to 2023, with the bulk of hiring having been carried out during the police uplift programme from 2020 to 2023.
Having cut policing staff by 20,000 since 2010, the former Tory government launched plans to hire 20,000 new police officers across the UK in three years, putting substantial pressure on forces to recruit rapidly.
Each of the 43 police forces across England and Wales were set targets for the number of recruits to hire from 2020 to 2023, but the Met was the only force to miss its target.
New concerns about the insufficient vetting of officers comes after The Standard revealed in February that the Met hired more than 1,000 officers without obtaining references before they started work.
Failures to make reference checks occurred for up to 18 months from 2020, a decision which reportedly goes against the official guidance from the College of Policing.
The Met recently came under fire after Adam Merriman, 38, who was a PC in the Met, was convicted of several acts of abuse against young children.
It was revealed that Merriman downloaded and distributed indecent images of children to someone he thought was a fellow paedophile, but was in fact an undercover officer.
The force has repeatedly been scrutinised following the conviction of PC Wayne Couzens who was found guilty of the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard in 2021.
Meanwhile, officials at Whitehall are considering mandating an investigation by the Independent Office for Police Conduct or His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, alongside the Met’s internal investigation into its hiring practices.
The potential recruitment error was uncovered by the force earlier this year, but was only revealed to the public on Monday, September 22.
The Met told the Guardian it is currently re-vetting recruits who may have been appointed under defective checks.
Employees currently working within their two-year probation period will be easier to dismiss than those who have full employee rights.
Dame Cressida Dick was head of the Met during the period in which the potential errors are suspected to have occurred, predating the current commissioner, Mark Rowley.
Dick was ousted from her role as head of the Met police in 2022 after London Mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, said she had to rapidly reform Scotland Yard or she would lose his support.
She resigned after being accused of failing to deal with a culture of misogyny, racism and corruption in the Met.
A spokesperson for the Met Police said: “Londoners rightly expect the highest standards from our officers and staff and we've overhauled our vetting and professional standards processes as part of our New Met for London plan.
“The Met now has one of the strongest entry vetting policies in UK policing and refusal rates have more than doubled from five per cent in 2020-21 to 11 per cent in 2023-24.
“Our changed approach means we are confident that only those who meet the highest standards will be granted vetting clearance and able to join the Met.”
