Call for Fair Police Vetting System

The vetting of all police officers must be thorough and transparent to create a fair system, South Yorkshire Police Federation said.

Federation Chair Steve Kent said forces should be empowered to rid of corrupt and law-breaking officers, but must make sure nobody lost their job without due process.

He said: “Nobody wants the crooked police officers or police officers who are sex offenders.
“So if you get those systems in place, nobody is going to mind that people get rightly rooted out of the organisation.

“But it has to be proper, because what we’ve got at the minute is constructive dismissal, which wouldn’t be tolerated in any other work.”

Many officers often feel forced out of the line of duty when an allegation – true or false – is levelled at them.

Steve insisted “solid principles and procedures” must be imposed to protect officers from this, and urged them to engage in industrial rights.

He continued: “We’ve been having very positive discussions with our force about how it’s going to adopt this.

“We are quite reassured, at this point, the force are looking to take a common sense and constructive view in terms of having that fairness within our force.”

Steve said he was grateful for SYP’s “constructive approach” but called for it to be legislated properly so officers under future leadership were protected.