Police officers who fail background checks will be sacked under new powers

22 comments

1. It’s a big boys club. Nobody can touch the big boys club.

2. Background checks should be completed prior to employment, no?

3. Who is going to make sure the vetting checks are independent and fair? And why can’t usual misconduct processes be used?

4. It is right for officers to have regular and thorough background checks. However, a fail should not be an auto sacking given how easy it is to make a malicious report.

5. [deleted]

6. People don’t realise how intrusive these checks are. I used to work for the police in a staff role. Had to hand over all my finances, social media accounts, details of partners, all my family names and addresses. I’ve seen countless people fail vetting because of debt or social media posts they made a decade ago.

   I worked in IT and we lost so many recruits because people just said “fuck this”, I’ll go get a normal job and earn more.

   Edit: forgot to add, I disclosed some crypto holdings at the time and was encouraged to “get rid”. In the end they backed down, but thank goodness they did because I later bought a house with it. Honestly, I get why we need checks, but as a person it’s just not worth the hassle.

7. > A Metropolitan Police officer accused of sexual offences, Sergeant Lino Di Maria, successfully mounted a legal challenge after having his vetting removed over the allegations, which he denies.

   > He was found to have no case to answer in respect of misconduct allegations, and argued that having his vetting removed without the accusations being proved is a breach of his right to a fair trial.

   So how is this workable considering they already lost a case over this. Safe guarding has already been becoming more guilty until proven innocent and now they want to fire people on accusations. What they should be doing is prioritising the police accusation cases instead get the investigation finished rather than dragging them out.

8. This feels like that news story that those voting on the Oscars will now have to watch the films…you mean this wasn’t happening already?

9. The main problem stems from a recruitment issue over 10 to 15yr period where they took anybody they could get and didn’t bother vetting properly. You get what you pay for!

10. Nobody, least of all Police Officers, has an issue with wrong-uns being rooted out of the force. But for those of you who don’t know – Police background checks are *not* independent, and nor do they have any formalised appeal process, or oversight.

    There is guidance, there are policies, but vetting is undertaken by the forces vetting department and it’s trivially easy to refuse to disclose reasons for failure because of GDPR. This leaves officers with little to nothing to go on, and they may be refused vetting over accusations that they never had any knowledge of.

    Second, is the appeals process. This is, literally, getting somebody else in the same vetting department to have another look. If you fail that, you’re done – there is no further way, unless you have the cash to launch a complex court case which is what that one officer was able to do. Where upon the Met were absolutely hammered in the judgement.

    I support what the gov are trying to do – it is, of course, farcical to have Police Officers who fail vetting, and officers who have committed offences, etc etc. But, if this is going to stand up in court, the vetting process needs big changes.

    Because, so far, none of this addresses the courts finding the other month.

    Edited to add: And, as mentioned by others, this really affects a special subset of cases where they’ve failed vetting but there isn’t sufficient evidence to use the normal misconduct channels. This is not about protecting officers who have committed serious crime – they’ll be accelerated through and sacked before they’ve blinked. This is going to affect officers who have been accused of wrong doing, but generally unproven with vetting used as, essentially, a backdoor approach to bin them,

11. I believe this may relate to issues raised on previous vetting and at the time not deemed an issue. An officers vetting is up for renewal, and something previously ok’d is now deemed a reason to dismiss.

12. The irony is it’s now easier to get rid of an officer based on vetting than it is if they can’t pass the fitness test which is a substantive and provable measure of capability.

13. I support this, but just hope it’s done correctly. Obviously there should be some things (like getting a major in your driving test) that result in immediate dismissal, while other things that can be up for consideration.

14. Will this just be rolled out to the white officers?

15. So if person A says Officer X raped them, he is arrested and the matter investigated. If it goes to Court and a jury finds him not guilty meaning they didn’t believe beyond all reasonable doubt he did it, then it goes to misconduct. At misconduct it will be whether on the balance of probabilities he did it (51% certain he did it). Now if he gets not guilty at misconduct, the vetting unit can just turn around and say bye bye. Unless the complainant is found to be lying then any allegation could result in dismissal even though it was never proven to be true to a criminal or civil standard of proof.

16. So a officer who was warned for stalking / harassment would be sacked.

    Where do we throw a name which needs re-vetting into the ring?

17. Need “foreground” checks too

    It’s useless having a police officer whose belly stops him/her from being able to see the pavement

18. You can join the police force even if you have a criminal record

19. None crime hate incidents show up on an enhanced dbs check. We all know how easy it is to abuse that.

20. Isn’t it kind of crazy that wasn’t already a thing?

21. OK… if this is implemented, then this is good news.

22. Oh, *of course this* will happen. It’s never been and never will be a club where you’re fully protected regardless of whatever wrongdoing you’re guilty of.

    s/

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