Serial rapists David Carrick and Cliff Mitchell were among more than 130 Metropolitan Police officers and staff wrongly hired or allowed to keep working as vetting was relaxed in a recruitment drive, a review has found. Thousands of recruits joined the force without undergoing proper checks as bosses abandoned national guidelines amid efforts to meet the Tory government’s policy to recruit 20,000 officers in England and Wales. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood called the failings “a dereliction of the Met’s duty to keep London safe” as she ordered the police inspectorate to carry out an urgent independent probe. Mitchell, 26, who was given a life sentence in 2024 for attacks on two victims over nine years, was initially rejected from the force because of a previous allegation of child rape. Image: Pic: PA But a vetting panel, aimed at reducing disproportionality towards ethnic minority groups, overturned the decision and he joined the force in August 2020. Carrick, 51, who is one of the UK’s worst ever sex offenders, had joined the Met in 2001 but a …