Serial rapist David Carrick was not properly vetted before joining the force among fellow police officers

More than 130 officers and staff within the Metropolitan Police, including two convicted serial rapists, committed crimes or misconduct due to critical failings in the force’s vetting process, a review has found.

David Carrick, one of Britain’s most notorious sex offenders, who received 37 life sentences, was unfairly investigated in 2017.

The check failed to disclose allegations of domestic abuse against him.

Cliff Mitchell, who carried out a “campaign of rape” on two victims over nine years, was allowed to join the army in 2020.

A trial panel, partly to improve diversity, overturned an initial rejection despite a previous charge of raping a child.

The findings highlight systemic testing failures within Britain’s largest police force.

131 cases were disclosed as part of a trial review that looked at the 10 years to the end of March 2023.

Other serious crimes committed by officers and staff include drug use, racism, violence and conflict.

A review published on Thursday found thousands of police officers and staff were not properly vetted amid pressure during the national recruitment drive from July 2019 to March 2023.

Senior Met officials chose not to meet national guidelines amid efforts to find 4,557 recruits over a three-and-a-half-year period.

Deviations from standard practice meant thousands of references went unchecked, and shortcuts in vetting led to the recruitment and retention of some officers and staff who should not have been on the force and contributed to losses in the police and damaged public trust, it said.

Under the Police Upgrading Program (PUP), forces in England and Wales were expected to recruit 20,000 officers within three and a half years after cuts were made during austerity, and funding was ringfenced and therefore lost if targets were not met.

The report found: “The review identifies a series of decisions, some of which were taken in isolation, which all compounded together and inadvertently increased risk.”

A total of 5,073 officers and staff were not properly vetted, of which 4,528 had no Special Branch vetting check, 431 had no Ministry of Defense (MoD) check, and 114 were refused vetting by a Met internal panel.

Another 3,338, whose renewal was due for testing, had only limited checks.

The Met estimates that about 1,200 people who joined the force may have had their checks rejected under normal practices, out of about 27,300 applications.

Separately, 17,355 officers and employees did not check their references properly, if at all, between 2018 and April 2022.

The Met has not checked each of these files, but estimates that around 250 people would have been out of a job if their references had been checked.

Some “deviations” in testing practices were placed on individuals that contributed to “harm the police” and harmed public confidence, the report said.

Identified “deviations” include:

• Automatically transferring officers from other forces without renewing their current checks

• Not checking ex-service personnel against MoD records at least between May 2020 and September 2021

• At least from May 2020 to October 2020, there is no investigation against the Special Branch or Counter-Terrorism Indexes

• Acceptance of past clearance for ex-servicemen who have left the Met for up to one year

• Reduced checks for officer and staff renewals, including the time the testing unit only looked at the police national computer instead of a full test review

• In April 2019, some new officers joined the army before receiving national security clearance

• Internal procedures were stepped up so that many staff security checks on Met special constables and internal staff were eliminated

The report also found that a disbanded investigative panel aimed at addressing disparities in the workforce overturned decisions to refuse to investigate 114 officers and employees, 25 of whom were accused of misconduct or crimes.

The review said senior officers faced political pressure to meet recruitment targets or lose funding to other forces.

Since current Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley took over in September 2022, 1,500 officers have been sacked in what has been billed as a bid to clean up the force. He was also a high-ranking Met officer between 2011 and 2018.

The report said that out of 730 investigation cases reviewed, 39 officers and employees had to be re-examined, of which 23 were cleared.

One officer resigned, another was fired for different reasons, six are pending lawsuits, and eight have been asked to potentially be fired.

The report concluded: “There were deviations from policy and practice, overconfidence in the ability to recruit at the level and a lack of resources in vetting increased risk.

“It is extremely difficult to establish a chain of causation between system changes and potential harm to the public and other members of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS).

“However, it is known that the scale and impact of these deviations ranged from some mild and modest in nature, to more significant impacts, including the recruitment and possible retention of individuals who would cause harm through crime and misconduct, including incidents that undermined public confidence in the MPS.”

The Met says it has taken steps to clean up the workforce and tighten testing standards.

Assistant Commissioner Rachel Williams said: “In publishing this report today, we are open and transparent about past vetting and recruitment practices which, in some cases, led to unsuitable people joining the Met.

“We have been honest with Londoners on a number of occasions about past shortcomings in our approach to professional standards. This review is part of our ongoing work to demand the highest standards across the Met so that the public can have trust and confidence in our officers.

“We discovered that some historical practices did not meet the robust recruitment and testing standards we have today. We identified these issues ourselves and resolved them quickly, ensuring that any risk to the public was appropriately and effectively managed.

“It is important to highlight that the Met recruits hundreds of officers and staff each year – the overwhelming majority of exemplary character who are dedicated to protecting the public.”

Paula Dodds, president of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said: “Today’s report illustrates a ridiculous situation in which numerical targets for recruitment are prioritized over the usual checks and balances.

“The first thing is that there should not be a small number of officers in the police service who are not qualified to serve by the good, brave and hardworking colleagues we represent.