A convicted serial rapist was able to join a UK police force and serve as an officer despite previous investigations into inappropriate behaviour towards women, a BBC investigation has found, reigniting a national debate about vetting standards and public safeguarding.
How the vetting failed
The officer, identified as Alan Greer, was investigated by police in 2002 and again in 2005 over allegations that he made inappropriate phone calls to women. One of those cases resulted in a formal police caution. Years later, Greer was nonetheless accepted into the service and went on to commit a series of sexual offences while holding the trust of the public he was sworn to protect.
The case has exposed what critics describe as a serious gap between the warnings recorded against an individual and the checks carried out before they are handed a uniform and a warrant card. A formal caution is, by definition, an admission that an offence was committed, yet such a marker did not block a subsequent application to join the police, prompting demands for an urgent review of how forces assess candidates with prior contact with the criminal justice system.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct and individual chief constables are likely to face questions about whether lessons from earlier misconduct cases have been properly embedded. Campaigners argue that vetting is not a box-ticking exercise but the first line of defence for victims and the wider public.
Why it matters
For communities across the UK, the police depend on a simple social contract: that the people entrusted with power have been properly screened. When that contract is broken, confidence in the entire force suffers, not just the individual officer. With recruitment and retention already under strain, cases like this risk deepening the reluctance of victims to come forward.
The revelations also land at a sensitive moment for policing reform. Successive inspectorate reports have warned that vetting backlogs and inconsistent standards between forces leave the door open to exactly the kind of failure seen here. A single caution should, many argue, trigger enhanced scrutiny rather than be waved through.
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What happens next
Greer is already serving a prison sentence for his crimes, but the institutional questions are only beginning. The BBC’s reporting is expected to prompt parliamentary scrutiny and a fresh round of inspections of vetting procedures in the force involved. Other UK forces may now be asked to re-examine their own records for candidates who slipped through with similar histories.
The government is under pressure to set a single, mandatory national vetting standard so that a warning in one part of the country cannot be overlooked by another. Until that happens, campaigners say, the public cannot be assured that the next applicant with a caution will be stopped before, rather than after, harm is done.
Source: Original report. Rewrite for Your News Website.
Really helpful article, thank you – looking forward to more like this!
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