The first report from an inquiry into the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by off-duty Metropolitan Police officer Wayne Couzens has called for a radical overhaul of police vetting nationwide.
The independent inquiry, led by Lady Elish Angiolini, found that Couzens should never have been given a job as a police officer.
The report says three police forces – Kent Police, the Met Police and the Civil Nuclear Constabulary – failed to spot the red flags about his unsuitability for office when they “could and should have stopped him”.
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These failures meant Couzens “could enjoy the powers and privileges that accompany the role of police officer”.
Lady Elish said that Couzens’ working environments “did nothing to discourage his misogynistic view of women”.
She added police leaders need to radically transform their approach to police culture, if future offenders are to be denied opportunities to abuse police powers for sexual purpose.
With immediate effect, the inquiry recommends that the College of Policing, in collaboration with police force recruitment, should ensure that every candidate applying to become a police officer undergoes an in-person interview and home visit before vetting and onboarding is progressed.
This should be designed to provide a holistic picture of the candidate and a better understanding of the candidate’s motivations for joining the police and serving the public.
Corresponding guidance and training for home visits must be developed to ensure they enable better sense of the candidate’s character, rather than judge living arrangements or socio-economic status.
By June 2024, the College of Policing and force vetting units should further develop the Vetting Code of Practice and other guidance on recruitment and vetting practices to prevent those who commit sexually motivated crimes and those otherwise unsuitable for policing from becoming a constable.
Applicants should have to undergo an assessment of their psychological suitability (which is not just a questionnaire) and there should be more robust use of the Police National Database during vetting, which should reveal unreported adverse information about applicants, particularly when individuals attempt to move between forces.
Any individual identified as having a conviction or caution for a sexual offence, including non-contact offences, should be rejected during police vetting. The Authorised Professional Practice on Vetting should be amended to ensure checks are carried out on all applicants who have served as military reservists.
There should be a fundamental review of the link between debt, mental health, vulnerability to corruption and suitability to be a police officer, to inform vetting decisions.
The Angiolini inquiry also recommended:
- Better national guidance and training to improve the investigation of indecent exposure cases
- Better information sharing between forces to flag vetting failures
- Police officers and staff to face randomised re-vetting throughout their careers
- Zero tolerance of sexist, misogynistic and racist “banter” in every police force
- Greater efforts to recruit more female officers, and
- Better support for staff who report sexual offences by fellow officers.
Met Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley said: “The report published today is an urgent call to action for all of us in policing. We must go further and faster, to earn back the trust of all those whose confidence in policing has been shaken by events of recent years.
“Regardless of our significant progress over the past year, the scale of the change that is needed inevitably means it will take time and it is not yet complete. The majority of my Met colleagues share my determination to reform by both confronting the risk posed by predatory men in policing, and also, improving our protection of women and children across London.”
In a statement to the Commons, home secretary James Cleverly said: “Anyone not fit to wear uniform for whatever reason must be removed from policing and every effort to make sure similar people never join.”
He added: “We are changing rules to make it easier for forces to remove those who cannot hold the minimal level of clearance,” saying there will now be a presumption for dismissal of any officer found to have committed gross misconduct.
Police vetting should be a continuous process and any individual who falls short of our standards should not be wearing our uniform” – Andy Marsh, College of Policing
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper responded that government action was “too weak, it is too little and it is too late, and the lack of urgency is unfathomable”.
She said the government was repeatedly warned about vetting failures and misconduct over the past decade and that all it had done was bring in a code of practice two-and-a-half years after Sarah’s murder “which isn’t strong enough”.
College of Policing chief constable Andy Marsh said: “Vetting should be a continuous process and any individual who falls short of our standards should not be wearing our uniform.
“We are consulting on some of the toughest standards in the history of policing. These reforms will do more than ever to stop the wrong people entering the service, monitor them closely when in the job, dismiss those who break our trust and ban them from ever returning.
“We will support police forces to redouble their efforts to ensure vetting is done to the highest standards as set by the College of Policing. Nevertheless, this stringent new approach to vetting will mean nothing unless applied consistently across policing. This is why we are implementing a new approach to accredit force vetting units that will require them to pass annual assessments.”
UK information commissioner John Edwards, who contributed to the inquiry, said: “This inquiry paints a concerning picture of how disciplinary concerns about police officers and recruits are shared.
“There is no room to hide behind misconceptions of the law on such an important matter: data protection law does not stand in the way of police sharing information about a potential recruit’s previous disciplinary action or warnings, nor does it act as a shield against investigations into police officers.”
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