I woke up recently to a Times headline: “Crime spree by Met Police officers waved through in diversity push.” As you can imagine, a headline like that got my spidey senses tingling!
The article began:
“A diversity panel at Britain’s biggest police force overturned vetting refusals, which led to rogue officers and staff committing rapes, assaults and drug offences, a review has found.”
Obviously, I’m all for diversity, but that doesn’t sound good!
It went on to explain that the Metropolitan Police had introduced a vetting panel in 2019 after noticing that applicants who were refused entry to the force were disproportionately from ethnic minority backgrounds and underrepresented groups. And that the panel had allowed in applicants who went on to commit misconduct or criminal offences.
The Times was writing about a Metropolitan Police Historic Vetting and Hiring Practices Review report, detailing failures in vetting and hiring checks during the period from 2013 to 2023.
The section of the review leading to The Times’ headline had found that of the 505 cases that came before the panel, 114 were overturned, and these people were allowed to join the Metropolitan Police. Unfortunately, of those 114, 25 went on to commit misconduct or criminal offences.
However, upon reading the report, I discovered that it contained much more information, ultimately providing a perfect case study on how different parts of the media chose to frame the same story.
So let’s take a look…
The report
The report, titled Operation Jorica, investigated a decade of compromised vetting and recruitment practices that had allowed unsuitable individuals to join the Met. The review revealed that between 2019 and 2023, the pressure to meet national hiring targets set by the Tory government’s Police Uplift Program (PUP) led them to bypass essential safeguards, including reference checks and national security screenings. Do you remember the pledge to hire 20,000 new police officers made in 2019 by Boris Johnson? Yes, that’s the one!
The report press release stated:
The Met deviated from aspects of Vetting Authorised Professional Practice (APP), national guidance and Police Regulations 2003 immediately before and during the PUP.
It highlighted the political pressure at the time to recruit and the fact that failing to hit their PUP target meant funding was redistributed away to other forces. The report stated:
“Ultimately, the PUP design is highly relevant context and is considered to be a driving factor in decision making.”
The numbers affected
Now, if you were only exposed to right-wing newspapers, you’d be forgiven for thinking the report was all about the diversity panel overturning some vetting decisions, leading to the recruitment of a black man who went on to be convicted of rape (we’ll talk about him specifically shortly):
But when you actually read the report itself, you get a much bigger picture view.
During the ten years covered by the report, there were 27,300 successful applications to join the Metropolitan Police.
- Only 18 per cent were vetted correctly!
- 64 per cent (17,355) did not have their references checked properly
- 17 per cent (4,528) did not have appropriate Special Branch checks done
- 1.6 per cent (431) did not have appropriate MOD checks done
- 0.4 per cent (114) were cases where the vetting panel overturned a decision
- 3,338 Met police employees due for vetting renewal did not have appropriate checks (not shown in diagram)
Yes, you read that correctly. Of the ~22,500 recruits who were not vetted correctly (and the 3,338 serving staff who did not have their vetting renewals carried out), only 114 were because of the vetting panel overturning initial refusals.
And yet, that was what the right-wing newspapers decided to focus on, blaming “diversity” rather than the Tory policies that created the need to rush recruitment and cut corners.
The report makes it clear that the Home Office were aware at the time that references were not being checked:
The review has seen evidence that the joint NPCC (National Police Chiefs’ Council) and Home Office PUP team were aware that some other forces in England were not taking references.
The impact
The report estimates that around 1,200 people were hired who would have failed proper vetting checks, and 250 people were hired who would have been refused if references had been checked.
Multiple news sources reported that of the ~26,000 who were not vetted or re-vetted correctly during this ten-year period, 131 went on to commit criminal or misconduct offences. This number was not mentioned in the report itself, but given it is so specific, I assume they got it from an official source!
Now, it is legitimate to scrutinise whether a diversity intervention undermined vetting decisions, and if it did, that matters. But the report shows the collapse was vastly wider than that and driven mainly by rushed recruitment pressures pushed by government policies.
It is worth adding in here that the vetting panel has been disbanded and the Met say:
We found that some historical practices did not meet the strengthened hiring and vetting standards we have today. We identified these issues ourselves and have fixed them quickly while making sure any risk to the public has been properly and effectively managed.
Across the media reporting of this report, two cases were highlighted where a policeman may not have been vetted properly and went on to be arrested and sentenced for rape. It is worth noting that neither of the cases was mentioned in the report or the Met press release about the report.
Cliff Mitchell
The first was Cliff Mitchell, the man in the headlines above.
He joined the Met in 2020.
He was then arrested in 2023 after someone reported that she had been raped and abused over a sustained period of years and that Mitchell had used his position as a police officer to intimidate her.
It came out that Mitchell had been previously reported to the police in 2019, accused of raping a child multiple times between 2014 and 2017, but the police had decided not to take any further action.
He was eventually found guilty of 13 counts of rape against both the woman and the child from the previous reports.
At the time of his sentencing in 2024, it was reported that:
“Mitchell received vetting clearance in 2020 when he applied to join the Met.
Following his charge in September 2023, the MPS (Metropolitan police service) asked the head of vetting at another force to review this decision. They concluded the vetting clearance in 2020 was in line with the Authorised Professional Practice issued by the College of Policing.
We have changed our approach and are confident that under our reformed approach, Mitchell would not be granted vetting clearance and be able to join the Met.”
Newspapers are now reporting that this is one of the cases where the vetting panel overturned an original decision not to accept him because the Met was aware of his previous accusation.
However, I haven’t managed to find any evidence elsewhere that this is what happened. It’s certainly true that the previous accusation against him should have been flagged, but as we will see with the next case, this occurred with a white man too and was not blamed on “diversity”.
He may well have been one of 25 people who had their vetting decisions overturned and went on to commit a criminal offence, but it seems to me to be a conclusion that has been drawn on the basis that he is Black, as that is the only difference between the two cases at the time they were hired.
Just to be crystal clear, I am not in any way defending Mitchell, and I’m very pleased he is behind bars!
David Carrick
The second was David Carrick, a White man who is serving 37 life sentences for rapes and sexual offences he committed from the 1980s through to 2020.
He was a front-line police officer from 2001 until 2021.
He was first reported to the Met in 2000 for burglary and theft (the case was dropped when he agreed to return the items!), and again that year for making malicious phone calls to the same ex-girlfriend he stole from.
Despite this, he was accepted into the Met the following year. A near carbon copy of what happened to Mitchell, except the police knew Carrick committed the crime he was accused of because he agreed to return the stolen items!
While on probation, he was accused of harassment and actual bodily harm (ABH) following an attack on a girlfriend in 2002. No action was taken, and the matter was not referred to professional standards.
From 2002-2008, he was the subject of five public complaints.
We now know that he raped three separate women during this time, but none of them reported it.
Despite the complaints, he was made an armed officer in 2009, when he should have been subject to further checks and vetting. At this point, there were three crime reports and five public complaints on file for him…
Later that year, he was investigated for abusing a girlfriend. No further action was taken as the complaint was withdrawn.
From 2009-2016, he raped two more women and attempted to rape a third. None were reported.
In 2017, Carrick underwent and passed enhanced counter-terrorist vetting, despite four crime reports and five complaints. He failed to declare these incidents on his forms and only declared that he had 3 points for speeding.
From 2017-2020, he raped a further four women, and was then arrested in July 2021 for rape, but again, no further action was taken as the complaint was withdrawn. This was when he was finally put on restricted duties.
He was eventually arrested and charged in October 2021 for a rape that occurred in 2020. Once his name appeared in the press, many more victims came forwards and he ultimately pleaded guilty to 43 of the 44 charges against him.
More historical victims came forward after his sentencing, and he was given a 37th life sentence late last year.
Carrick is considered to be one of Britain’s most prolific rapists, with the vast majority of offenses occuring during his time as a police officer.
He passed the vetting procedure in 2001, despite there being two crime reports on file for him. He passed further checks in 2009, despite there being three crime reports and five public complaints against him, and he passed an enhanced counter-terrorist vetting despite there being four crime reports and five complaints against him.
So now let’s look at how much coverage each of these men was given by the different news outlets when the Jorica report came out.
News coverage
BBC – Two rapists among Met officers not properly vetted
Both men are mentioned from the start of the article, photos of both men were included, and the thumbnail photo was a bland police hat.
Sky News – ‘Dereliction of duty’: Met Police relaxed vetting to meet recruitment targets
Both men are mentioned from the start of the article, photos of both men were included, and the thumbnail photo is a side-by-side photo of the men.
So far, so balanced. They cover the findings of the report and give equal weight to two police rapists who had been recruited despite a previous accusation against them being on file
Now a look at the left-leaning press:
Guardian – Failure to properly vet officers resulted in serial rapists within Met ranks, review finds
Both men are mentioned, but neither has their photo included. More emphasis is given to Carrick’s case (I guess like I have done, but hopefully you can see why!)
Mirror – Serial rapist PC David Carrick slipped through police background checks
Only Carrick’s case was covered.
Now on to the more right-leaning press:
The Times – Crime spree by Met Police officers waved through in diversity push
They include a photo of Mitchell, but none of Carrick. Mitchell is the main focus and is described as one of the most shocking cases. Carrick is only briefly mentioned later with 2 sentences about him.
The Telegraph – Met hired child rape suspect to boost diversity
They used two images of Mitchell and one of Carrick. The main thrust of the article was about Mitchell and diversity. Carrick is mentioned briefly.
The Daily Mail – Met hired child rapist in bid to boost diversity as force admits it failed to properly vet thousands of officers
They used two images of Mitchell and none of Carrick. There is one mention of Carrick sandwiched between the 13 paragraphs specifically about Mitchell
The Express – Police diversity obsession led to recruitment of child rapist and other rogue officers
This one takes the biscuit! It not only has no photos of Carrick and only shows Mitchell, it doesn’t even mention Carrick – the police officer serving 37 life sentences, whom we know for a fact was impacted by the failure of vetting covered by this report.
This was such a stark example of how different newspapers report on the same story.
A report about police failures in vetting on an enormous scale gets covered three ways:
- BBC and Sky News cover the failures in policing hiring practices, and focus equally on two policemen who were hired despite previous reports made against them, who went on to rape women while serving as police officers.
- The Guardian was similar, but with more of an emphasis on Carrick, which I’d argue is justifiable given the scale of his crimes.
The Mirror focuses mainly on the Police failures and only mentions Carrick. Not mentioning Mitchell doesn’t really change the crux of the story – the police vetting failures. Would it have been more balanced if they had included him? - And then the right-leaning press goes for the “diversity” angle because one of them is Black, despite both men being taken on in almost identical conditions.
Now it is possible that Mitchell was taken on after a vetting panel overturned his refusal, but I have not been able to find any direct evidence for this. The newspapers are certainly claiming it is what happened, but they haven’t given the source for that claim, and I can’t find anything beyond the previous Guardian article that reported:
“Following his charge in September 2023, the MPS (Metropolitan police service) asked the head of vetting at another force to review this decision. They concluded the vetting clearance in 2020 was in line with the Authorised Professional Practice issued by the College of Policing.”
Remember, Operation Jorica covered how “The Met deviated from aspects of Vetting Authorised Professional Practice (APP), national guidance and Police Regulations 2003 immediately before and during the PUP.
That doesn’t sound like a vetting panel overturned an initial decision not to hire him, but that is just my opinion based on everything I’ve read and my failure to find any evidence to show it was.
But regardless of whether that was the case with Mitchell, following a decade of failed vetting procedures, two men were hired by the police despite having previous accusation/s against them on file, and they went on to commit multiple rapes while serving as police officers.
One was White, and one was Black.
And our right-wing press decided to cover the whole report as a Diversity issue, despite the vetting panel accounting for only 0.4 per cent of the decisions.
When papers treat 0.4 per cent as the main story because that magnifies race, they aren’t informing the public. They’re manufacturing a worldview.
This piece is reproduced from Emma’s superb substack, Monk Debunks, by kind permission. You can now also hear Emma debunkng the lies, false narratives and hyperbole by listening to her new podcast with fellow social and political commentator, ‘The Bear’. More details and links on the website.
