I am thinking of Sarah Everard’s family and friends at this most difficult time. The Angiolini Inquiry report released is as shocking as it is chilling – it exposes the fact that there were so many missed opportunities to stop Sarah’s killer in the years before her death and many warning signs were not acted on. This can never happen again.
Police vetting must be improved, as her killer should never have been a police officer. The sad reality is, when you look at this and many other cases that have come before, it is not just a few bad apples. The murder of Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman and subsequent police misconduct showed there are still outstanding issues.
That is why I continue to believe that every single police officer should be independently re-vetted – including psychological testing – because this is too important to get wrong.
The public’s confidence in policing has been dented again, after many other high-profile cases of misconduct and failings. It will take serious work and a change of culture to restore that trust. In the UK we police by consent – and that relies on public trust. I will continue to play my part in working with the police towards this vital aim.