When I was a very young man back in the early eighties I had friends who I had formerly gone to school with who had considered entering the service of the Metropolitan Police. Some didn’t go through with the idea, some joined and others served the police in a civilian capacity. All of them however told me that the vetting process was onerous. The Met did their best back then to ensure that they were not hiring wrong’uns. One person told me that the Met was so concerned about honesty and probity that they were obviously looking for people who were so committed to these things that they would arrest their own mothers if required.
Sadly it seems that the Metropolitan Police’s vetting procedures seem to have slipped in quality somewhat and individuals who are really not suitable for police work are being put in uniform. A good case in point is this latest Met Police nonce to be unveiled to the public which is detailed in a recent ‘My London’ article.
My London said:
A vile paedophile Metropolitan Police officer has been sacked after he had sex with a 14-year-old girl. PC Hussain Chebab pleaded guilty to four counts of sexual activity with a girl aged 13 to 15 as well as three counts of making indecent photographs of a child and sexual communication with a child in court in January.
A misconduct panel on March 9 found him guilty of gross misconduct and he was fired without notice ahead of his sentencing on Friday (March 17). PC Chehab’s sex crimes came to light in July 2021 when the family of a 16-year-old girl alerted police to a relationship with him which they said began when she was 15. He was arrested on August 24, 2021 and his phone and laptop were seized.
Having been placed on restricted duties, indecent images were found on his devices and he was arrested again on October 28 and suspended from duty. Detectives then found messages which showed PC Chehab and a 14-year-old girl engaging in sexual communication. She later revealed they appeared to have entered into a sexual relationship when she was just 14 and he was 18 years old.
This isn’t one of those types of cases where there is only allegations and no credible evidence, this is a case where there appears to be quite a bit of digital evidence of PC Chehab’s activities. I can’t help but wonder if there had been a more thorough vetting procedure in place in the Met whether his offending could have been uncovered earlier. It could even be the case that although criminal conduct might not been revealed that better background checks might have aroused suspicions that this man was unsuitable to be a police officer?
However this case gets worse. Chehab was eventually given the job of being a Met Police safer schools officer meeting and greeting parents and children at a school in Enfield North London. Surely when this man took up this post the Met should have done some further checks to ensure child safeguarding as the officer was now working in a much more sensitive area. After all those with certain specialities in the Met are supposed to be re-vetted to ensure that they are suitable for their posts, which begs the question why is it not routine for those officers who work closely with children to be checked in the same way. There is no suggestion that Chehab’s offending was associated with his work as a safer schools officer but the Met really should make sure that Safer Schools Officers are not nonces.
We are expected and exhorted by the State to trust the police and maybe in some situations that is the correct thing to do, such as when the police are keeping the public back from a dangerous situation, but we can only trust the police if they themselves are trustworthy. Failure to vet potential officers or serving officers for criminality or for moral turpitude undermines that trust greatly.
This is the latest in a long string of Met Police vetting and management failures that have seen high profile cases of officers being convicted of murder and serial rape and sexual abuse come to the public’s attention. There are also hundreds of other officers who have had allegations of misconduct or criminality aimed at them and who have been placed on restricted duties away from the public, of which for a time Chehab was one.
The Met has a recruiting and vetting problem which, along with incompetence and politicisation is harming the public’s trust in the force. Whilst the incompetence and polticisation issues are important and need to be dealt with as a matter of urgency, the vetting issue is also extremely important. Maybe if the Met want to rebuild confidence in their force or at least start that process then maybe they should have much stricter vetting procedures for potential officers? It might not have to be as strict as UK Civil Service Enhanced Developed Vetting, but some aspects of it, such as financial, criminal record and Security Service checks and maybe a less than cursory investigation into the applicant’s family and friends, might be useful in stopping wrong’uns before they put on a Met Police uniform. Maybe the best way that the Met could recover some trust from the public with regards the probity of its officers would be to return to the days when the Met did its best to recruit only those who were so dedicated to police work that they’d shop their own mothers if necessary.
