Now check every police officer, Braverman tells forces’ chiefs

POLICE forces were ordered to check every officer against national databases yesterday amid an outcry over missed opportunities to have caught a rapist constable.

As Rishi Sunak blasted the abuse of power by David Carrick as ‘absolutely despicable’, forces in England and Wales were told by Home Secretary Suella Braverman to review all their 160,000 officers, plus staff.

The aim is to identify anyone else who may have ‘slipped through the net’.

On Monday, parliamentary protection officer Carrick admitted 49 charges against a dozen women including 24 counts of rape.

Following the revelations, his own force, Scotland Yard, is reviewing almost 1,100 officers who have had reports of domestic abuse or sexual misconduct made against them over the past decade. And the National Police Chiefs Council will ask all 43 forces in England and Wales to check their staff – especially those recruited before tougher vetting was introduced in 2006.

Mr Sunak said police reforms had to ensure officers who abused their powers ‘had no place to hide’.

The Prime Minister added: ‘Carrick’s abuse of power is truly sickening and

‘There will be no place to hide’

our thoughts are with his victims. The police must address the failings in this case, restore public confidence and ensure the safety of women and girls.

‘There will be no place to hide for those who use their position to intimidate those women and girls, or those who have failed to act to reprimand or remove those people from office.’

Mr Sunak said he had had ‘constructive talks’ with Met commissioner Mark Rowley and had ‘ made clear to him – and he agrees – that the abuse of power that we have seen this week is absolutely despicable and it needs to be addressed immediately’.

Sir Mark said he was ‘ turning over stones’ to root out dangerous officers.

‘We’re going back and checking some closed cases to make sure the decision’s right, so we’re doing lots of belts and braces,’ he added.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said checking officers against databases was ‘ the bare minimum’ and ‘it’s frankly shocking it doesn’t already happen’.

NPCC chairman Martin Hewitt said: ‘This will help identify anyone who has slipped through the net before vetting standards were toughened and remove those who are unfit to serve.’

Mrs Braverman has told the College of Policing to strengthen the statutory code for police vetting, making the legal obligations to which all forces must adhere stricter and clearer.

She said: ‘We are taking immediate steps to ensure predatory individuals are not only rooted out of the force, but that vetting and standards are strengthened to ensure they cannot join the police in the first place.’

The Home Office has also launched a review of the disciplinary system to make sure officers who ‘fall short of the high standards expected’ can be sacked.

■ A police watchdog has quit over claims bosses ‘watered down’ her findings into the stop and search of two black athletes. Trisha Napier, an investigator for the Independent Office for Police Conduct, looked into the case of Bianca Williams and Ricardo Dos Santos, who were stopped while driving through west London in July 2020. They said they were stopped because they were black.

Ms Napier concluded officers were potentially guilty of gross misconduct but this was cut to a lower charge of misconduct.

Ms Napier told BBC Newsnight the IOPC watered down her findings, leading her to leave her job of 17 years. The watchdog rejected her claims and insisted it was not unusual for a decision to change as a case developed.