Peter Moore: How vetting failures and recruitment pressure may have put the public at risk

How did it happen? The Metropolitan Police appear to have appointed some dubious characters as police officers.

I have no doubt that most officers are decent people, but the Met Police also appointed people with criminal records. Famously they appointed Wayne Couzens who sexually assaulted and murdered Sarah Everard.

Over my career I have had more vetting than James Herriot. 

It is difficult to know why the Met failed to pick up serious problems with some recruits but one theory might be that they were under the twin pressures of a recruitment drive and a lack of funding. 

When Boris Johnson was Prime Minister he promised another 20,000 officers. i

Did the same problem occur in the USA when Donald Trump enlarged the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE)? Looking at their recent behaviour from this side of the Atlantic, some of the officers appear almost out of control, shooting rather than asking questions. 

The shooting of Nicole Good in Minneapolis seems a pointless action. When a doctor offered to help, he was refused.  From what we know it appears that these officers should never have been allowed to police the public. 

Sometimes cuts can create unexpected problems with vetting. When I worked for the police it was decided to employ nurses in the police stations. This made sense although I was concerned about the minutes of one of our meetings. 

“Dr Moore said he was happy to have an embedded nurse.”

Don’t let my wife see these minutes. 

To save money, Devon and Cornwall Police worked with the other West Country forces to set up a central vetting unit. This, again, sounded sensible until I saw it in action. 

I have no doubt that the new unit was efficient and did not miss any dubious characters but suddenly the wait for vetting extended to several weeks. We appointed some nurses but then had to explain why they could not start until the vetting was through.  Some became fed up with waiting and took on another job.

My personal experience of vetting is very different. I was a GP for over 20 years before someone decided that it might be a good idea to ensure I was not a psychopathic killer. This ruling was made after another GP, Harold Shipman, who was a psychopathic killer, was convicted. For the absence of doubt, I was not found to be a psychopathic killer. 

I had more vetting when working for the police. It appears that one department does not talk to another department. 

The most thorough vetting came from the prison service. Before I could work as a locum GP in the Devon prisons I had to fill in a long form. It even asked me about my parents and my brother. My father died in 1969 and my brother in 1993. 

Since my brother was a detective inspector in the Met I am sure he was honest, although with today’s news I can understand why they asked questions. They also looked at my financial situation, which made sense. If I had been heavily in debt I would have been at risk of bribery. 

Despite their best efforts I was given the all-clear. My only disappointment was that many very honest people were called for an interview. Why did they not want to talk to me?

When our son ran a weekend children’s football team he was again thoroughly vetted. This makes perfect sense although his day job was a primary school teacher. Any risk to the footballers was far less than any risk at the school had there been any allegations. Of course there were no problems. 

If MI5 suspected I was a Russian agent would I be arrested? After a careful investigation, they would find nothing of interest on my social media, in my writing or home life. The only time I am a sleeper is at night. They might conclude that no one is this boring. I must be hiding something. 

Vetting is important in many jobs to protect the public. It appears that there has been a problem in the Met. Let’s hope the recent problems give the force an opportunity to find out what has gone wrong.