Hundreds of women assaulted: a warning to all employers

BackCheck, the UK’s largest background-checking operations team, says that the recent reports of a black cab driver assaulting possibly hundreds of women is a warning that some organisations also have a moral obligation to check the background of their staff, even they don’t have a legal one.

The most important aim is the safety of the individuals that come into contact with people at work.  Running a background check on staff is even more important when those workers are out on their own and in a position to abuse their trust.

Chris Hawkins, assistant vice president of operations at BackCheck, says: “For some companies, if they don’t have a legal obligation to protect the people that their staff come into contact with, then they have a moral obligation, as this case demonstrates.  When employers run criminal checks on their staff they have a chance to protect future victims”.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

Email(Required)

OptOut

From time to time, we will send you emails about selected products, events and services from Personnel Today - but you can choose to opt-out at any time. If you do not wish to receive these emails, please tick this box.

Name

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Δ

BackCheck points to one of their clients, Pimlico Plumbers, which employs staff that go into the homes of their clients, they are not legally obliged to run background checks on their employees, but they believe they have a moral obligation out of a duty to their clients.

Dominic Ceraldi, HR Director at Pimlico Plumbers said, “We introduced background checks for our staff in 2008.  As a company, we feel happier that we can be confident about the integrity of our staff, and that’s good for our clients too.”