Police sexual offence convictions have soared by more than a third since the murder of Sarah Everard, The Independent can reveal, prompting warnings that forces must “wake up to the horror” and do more to prevent predators from joining their ranks.
Despite efforts to improve standards and public trust after the 33-year-old’s death at the hands of serving Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens in 2021, stark new figures lay bare the scale of offending, with officers – all men – convicted of rape, sexual assault and arranging the sexual exploitation of a child.
Since the start of 2022, nine months after Ms Everard’s murder, 59 police officers have been convicted of a sexual offence, according to freedom of information figures obtained from 26 of the 42 police forces in England and Wales.
That figure, which includes Couzens, is up 34 per cent from the 30 officers convicted between 2018 and 2021, a period that does include the Covid lockdowns. Among those convicted since 2022 are former Greater Manchester Police officer Dean Dempster, who sexually abused a six-year-old girl while responding to a domestic incident, and former West Yorkshire police officer Ben Bottomley, who raped and sexually assaulted a woman before joining the force.
The Home Office admitted the figures were “shameful”, while Dame Vera Baird, a former victims’ commissioner, described them as “frightening”.
She told The Independent: “Why would any female victim of sexual abuse, or domestic abuse which invariably had a sexual dimension to it, have confidence, or trust in calling police when they need help, when they are well aware that they may be putting themselves into the hands of another abusive man?”
Dame Vera, who was victims’ commissioner between 2019 and 2022, said the increased number of prosecutions may indicate that more officers are being reported by colleagues and “rooted out”. But, she cautioned, “that they were there in the first place is frightening”.
“The police need to wake up to the horror with which the Sarah Everard episode filled the violence against women and girls (VAWG) movement and realise that they can’t fail to do as they were told by the inquiry, but to go the extra mile before they will have a chance of recapturing women’s confidence,” she added.
Following Ms Everard’s death, police chiefs vowed to improve standards with a mass screening of 307,000 police employees carried out, leading to nine criminal investigations.
The latest statistics, which may include some historical offending, come after the second part of a damning inquiry into Ms Everard’s death found forces had failed to fully implement recommendations on recruitment vetting set 18 months ago, including a requirement for psychological assessments of new recruits and a blanket ban on those with convictions or cautions.
The inquiry’s chair, Lady Elish Angiolini, warned that meant predators like Couzens, who had passed vetting at the Met despite being reported to Kent Police for allegedly indecently exposing himself, could still be being given police jobs.
She told The Independent: “It [the latest figures] just raises the alert that vetting cannot be something that just happens when you come through the door.
“I’m suggesting [vetting is done] in an irregular fashion so that police know that there’s a prospect of that happening at some point, not more than once, in their career, to ensure that they are still the same people that they were who had applied and not corrupted in a way which can manifest itself in the sexual abuse of those who they are there to support and serve, rather than abuse.”
Forces follow guidelines on vetting published by the College of Policing, whose latest update last year said officers should be continually vetted with randomised checks. And in April, the then home secretary Yvette Cooper said new measures would make it a legal requirement to pass background checks for all serving officers.
Responding to the figures, a Home Office spokesperson said: “These figures are shameful, and these awful incidents undermine trust and confidence in our police. The home secretary [Shabana Mahmood] has been clear that she will do everything she can to ensure women and girls can live free from fear and harm and that the strictest standards in policing are upheld.
“We have already reformed the police misconduct system, ensuring forces can fire officers who fail vetting and that those under investigation for crimes such as domestic abuse or sexual offences can be suspended more robustly.”
However, MPs, campaigners and charities say more needs to be done.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp helped create legislation to tighten up vetting while policing minister under the last Conservative government, including making it easier for police chiefs to sack rogue officers during misconduct hearings.
He told The Independent: “These figures are both shocking and unacceptable. The public must be able to have confidence that police officers will act with decency and integrity. There is no place in our force for dangerous predators; we need continuous vetting processes to identify and remove officers who pose a risk to women.
“It’s clear more work needs to be done to ensure full trust and confidence in policing, and in opposition, we will support whatever measures are needed to do that.”
Labour MP for Brent East Dawn Butler, who has called for the DNA profiles of all Met Police officers to be held on a police database, said the numbers were “shocking but sadly not surprising” and called for stricter vetting. “Some officers become very bad people, some are born that way and use the police service as a gateway ... Ultimately, to fully build trust, we need a new social contract between the police and its citizens,” she added.
Andrewa Simon, executive director at End Violence Against Women Coalition, said the rise in convictions was “shocking”, but said it also showed greater accountability for abuse.
But she cautioned: “Angiolini’s recent findings lay clear the lack of sufficient progress in the way that police forces, and arguably society as a whole, are dismantling cultures of racism and sexism. Policing still has a long way to go to improve the vetting and recruitment of officers and to ensure victims and survivors of abuse receive the level of response they deserve.”
Of the 59 police officers convicted of sexual offences since 2022, 22 were from the Met Police, the UK’s biggest force. Two were of the rank of sergeant or above, and none are still serving officers.
Couzens had used his status as a police officer to get Ms Everard to believe he was arresting her for breaking lockdown rules, before attacking her. After her death, it emerged there had been concerns about his behaviour – he was reportedly nicknamed “the rapist” – and he was part of a WhatsApp group with fellow officers that shared disturbing racist, homophobic and misogynist remarks.
Following his conviction, the force, which called Couzens’s crimes “shattering for everybody”, vowed to carry out an urgent review of all allegations of officer sexual misconduct and domestic abuse.
A Met Police spokesperson said: “There is no room in our organisation for any person who commits a sexual offence. Every one of these officers has been dismissed or would have been dismissed had they still been serving.
“The Met now has one of the strongest entry vetting policies in UK policing and refusal rates have more than doubled.”
As well as the sexual offences, the figures showed officers were also convicted of stalking, violence and corruption, with a total of 575 police officers sentenced since 2018.
The National Police Chiefs’ Council, which represents forces, appointed Deputy Assistant Commissioner Helen Millichap to run its work on violence against women and girls this year. She also is director of the National Centre for VAWG and Public Protection.
DAC Millichap said a “significant overhaul” of vetting and misconduct procedures was leading to more people being identified and dismissed from forces. This included home visits as part of the recruitment process and mandatory police national database checks. The NPCC said psychological assessments for recruits will be rolled out next year.
