The Vetting Epidemic in England and Wales

Published date01 December 2017
Date01 December 2017
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1177/0022018317734715
Subject MatterArticles
Article
The Vetting Epidemic in
England and Wales
Chris Baldwin
University of Sunderland, Sunderland, UK
Abstract
This article charts the rise of criminal vetting by employers and voluntary organisations in
England and Wales. It examines the historical roots of vetting and its progress from being
initially a marginal concern for specialised groups to its position as an integral part of the
recruitment process for over 3,000,000 people per annum by 2007. Critical exploration of this
shift is provided—key events such as the conservative government consultation of the early
1990s and the incremental implementation of its recommendations are re-evaluated. This
article identifies and examines the correlation between the media reporting of, and subsequent
public reaction to, a series of high-profile child murders and the response of the legislature and
the judiciary to these which lead ultimately to the development of a vetting epidemic in England
and Wales by 2007. The role played in this development by vested interests, such as voluntary
groups and employers, will be traced and critiqued, along with the missed opportunities for
reform which might have prevented the epidemic’s spread.
Keywords
Vetting, criminal records, disclosure, CRB, Soham
Introduction
The last few years have been quite remarkable so far as criminal records in England and Wales are
concerned. A public and media backlash
1
against ‘the vetting epidemic’
2
seems to have set in while the
government have acted with surprising haste—firstly convening an independent review into the existing
vetting regime, secondly by imp lementing a raft of amendments to c riminal records legislatio n as
recommended by that review and then thirdly, without almost any discernible warning, by dismantling
the Criminal Records Bureau (‘the CRB’) and replacing it with the Disclosure and Barring Service.
Corresponding author:
Chris Baldwin, Reg Vardy Building, St Peter’s Campus, Sunderland, SR6 0DD, UK.
E-mail: chris.baldwin@sunderland.ac.uk
1. T. Thomas, ‘Old Criminal records Playing a Familiar Tune’ (2012) 176 JPN 539.
2. T. Pitt-Payne, ‘Employment—The Shadow of the Past’ (2009) 159 NLJ 1530 and R. Scorer, ‘A Vetting Epidemic?’ (2007) 157
NLJ 985.
The Journal of Criminal Law
2017, Vol. 81(6) 478–496
ªThe Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0022018317734715
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This article provides a much needed context for the recent tumult by examining the rise of the vetting
regime in England and Wales. This will highlight the key staging posts in the metamorphosis of the
system from a marginal and piecemeal administrative data collation exercise into a multi-million pound
commercial operation which affects millions of citizens per annum. The author will identify a number of
critical turning points for reform, including the comprehensive government consultation and review in
1993 and will show that a number of opportunities for effective development and reform have been
missed.
The author demonstrates that this transition came initially through a gradual, almost imperceptible
creeping growth of localised schemes which allowed for increased levels of employment screening
followed by a combination of pressure applied by vested interests entreating for greater levels of
disclosure and a reactionary process stemming from a number of highly emotive and well-publicised
child murder cases, rather than by predetermined policy grounds. This correlation between high-profile
child abduction cases and increased demands for vetting has often been presumed but rarely extrapolated
fully. Here, it will be contended that three particular incidents, namely the murders of Marie Payne in
1983, Sarah Payne in 2000 and Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002, created an unprecedented and
wholly disproportionate climate of fear and mistrust which generated a perfect breeding ground for
invasive criminal vetting. It is submitted that this heightened concern of paedophiles and of ‘stranger-
danger’ justified, and indeed positively encouraged, a rapid expansion of criminal record checks far
beyond that initially envisaged under the legislative framework. Some of the more excessive examples
of vetting in individual cases and the application of general vetting principles will be highlighted to
demonstrate the scale of criminal checks which, by 2007, had reached the epidemic levels.
Vetting: A Potted History
The system of criminal vetting in England and Wales via a single, designated, centralised organisation
has in situ for only 13 years.
3
That is not to say that vetting is a new phenomenon in the UK; in fact, there
is a history which can be traced back to the 1740s when Henry Fielding first took the names of convicted
offenders at Bow Street Magistrates Court.
4
This list formed the ‘Universal Register Office’ in 1749.
5
By 1863, the Chief Constable of Lincolnshire was ‘constantly receiving letters from private enquiry
offices seeking information as to the character, respectability and money value of persons residing in the
towns and villages’.
6
Victorian politicians, apparently wary that the scaling back of capital punishment
and the transportation of offenders on hulks to Australia might mean that there were more criminals re-
entering society, decided to keep records relating to them and implemented the Habitual Criminals Act
1869 to ensure that such records were retained in England and Ireland.
7
The Prevention of Crimes Act
1871 did likewise for Scotland and between them these Acts laid the responsibility for maintaining
records squarely with the police where, save for a period between 1876 and 1896 when the task was
transferred to the Home Office, responsibility still lies today. To facilitate this, the police opened the
Criminal Records Office at Scotland Yard in 1913 to store, in hard copy, criminal records.
8
3. S. Room, ‘Meeting the Challenges of Climbie and Soham—Part 3’ (2004) 154 NLJ 590.
4. T. Thomas, Criminal Records: A Database for the Criminal Justice System and Beyond (Palgrave MacMillan: London, 2007)
106.
5. M. Bichard, The Bichard Inquiry Report, HC653 (22 June 2004) 56.
6. C. Emsley, The English Police: A Political and Social History (Harvester Wheatsheaf: Hemel Hempstead, 1991) 107 cited
above n. 4.
7. T. Thomas, ‘National Collection of Criminal Records—A Question of Data Quality’ (November 2001) CLR 886–896 at 886–
887.
8. Ibid. at 887
Baldwin 479

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