To wonder how a police national intelligence database got it so wrong re Wayne Couzens?

[Rangelife]

I have been following the inquiry/Angiolini report into Wayne Couzens, his role in the police and the years before he committed the disgusting murder of Sarah Everard. This paragraph from the BBC has really unsettled me:

'Lady Elish Angiolini says in 2018, when Couzens joined the Metropolitan Police, a search of the Police National Database - an intelligence database - found "no trace". In fact there were entries about an incident in 2013 when he was reported missing from home, and an allegation of indecent exposure from 2015. These were also missed when he applied to be a firearms officer the following year.'

There's two explanations here, both worrying. Either the database isn't red flagging previous police contact in it's vetting procedures OR the humans who are running the database and analysing the results are seeing the results but recording it as 'no trace' anyway? There doesn't seem to be any curiosity about what happened with the database, but as we have seen from the Post Office scandal these things matter. You would have thought that the vetting procedures would be failproof surely? Police get a lot of power, contact with vulnerable people and get their hands on weapons such as CS spray, tazers or firearms?

Sarah Everand deserves our bearing witness to the circumstances that enabled a psychopath to be able to do this.
The report highlights the need for immediate action.
This cannot ever happen again!
It's horrific!

Could you kindly expand on this - what sort of “soft” data goes into an enhanced DBS?

I’ve looked online, including here, but I’m not much clearer.

• “an enhanced check, which shows the same as a standard check plus any information held by local police that’s considered relevant to the role

This seems a bit open to interpretation to me, which is not a good thing IMO.

As I work one-one with vulnerable children I needed an enhanced DBS. I’m on the updating service, but I don’t know if all teachers are.

He also sexually assaulted A man in drag and asked him to perform a sex act on him.

How on earth did his wife not know what he was like.
He obvs gave no shits about her or his children.
I wonder if he sees his children if he does poor them. Xx

How on earth did his wife not know what he was like

Do you think it's the kind of thing he'd bring up?

Misogyny. No one listened to the victims. No one thought the crimes were that serious.

If they knew it was him, well he’s a bit of a lad. He wouldn’t really hurt anyone though. If they didn’t like him- he’s an arrogant sod, he gets on people’s wick. He rubs women up the wrong way. They can’t handle it.

His wife was probably groomed not to question him. He’s a big man with a big job you know.

@Meadowfinch you are not picking at a few 'examples'

I'm ex met myself. Thoroughly vetted! We all were in my intake

*nit picking

Unbelievable.

And no one will be held accountable.

See I don't think that "How could his wife not know what he was like" is particularly helpful, to me it implies she had the responsibility to stop him, chances are as the woman closest to him she did know what he was like because I can't imagine she wasn't subject to some of this behaviour as well, but if the police service, who are supposed to protect us from individuals like this, much less employ them, let him continue, what hope did one woman (and women are his target) have against him and them?
As far as the records went he was an upstanding member of the police force, that's what he used to commit these crimes and get away with them, even if his wife had tried to draw attention to his behaviour, there was nothing to support her, rather the opposite in fact. And like the rest of us she probably had faith in 'the system' that if he were truly a danger then there would be records and evidence, especially as a police officer, and he wouldn't have been allowed to continue.
And that's before you get to the conditioning of women by their abusers and the way they have of making it seem like the woman is the one with the issue, oversensitive to the man's behaviour - again backed up by the records not indicating there was an issue.

I'm not questioning the reality of my experiences, thank you very much. There was a time when two people - one I knew - had the same NI number. This was 35 years ago, and one is certainly still alive.

Now I am quite happy to be told that NI numbers are meant to be unique. But that is a slightly different discussion from why the checks on Couzens managed to find nothing. I would suggest it was because they used the "Nelson" search technique which is well proven in police and establishment circles.

Anyone blamed his wife yet?

NI numbers should be unique. That's how the system was designed.

Unfortunately, there have been a few isolated cases of apparently duplicated NI numbers, but usually it's a mistake by the person themselves, or an employer, etc., in putting down the wrong NI number (i.e. transposing a couple of numbers) so two people end up using the same NI number, one correctly, the other using someone else's number. This was a lot more common in the past when records were hand written.

When the tax, pensions and benefits agencies started to computerise and integrate databases, these kind of errors started to be noticed. I certainly remember around 20 years ago, I saw a few cases where wrong NI numbers had been used by past employers for clients of mine who were coming up to state retirement age and discovered their state pensions were far lower than expected, and after lots of digging, we found that employment histories weren't fully shown, and even more digging showed the wrong NI number on old payslips and P60s. Not seen anything like that for the past decade or so, so I think the databases have finally been cleaned up and repaired.

You could have just said my point was right ?

Easy to see how Horizon happened, isn't it ?

Just leave this here ...

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/01/west_midlands_police_data_protection/

She obvs never looked at his WhatsApp then?
He was racist as well?

Wonder what the attraction was, he's not even good looking.
He didn't even care about his children
How could he put them through that?
Imagine growing up knowing what your dad's done?
Don't know how these kind of people aren't embarrassed and ashamed at what they've put everyone through?

She obvs never looked at his WhatsApp then?
He was racist as well?

Why are you coming at me like I'm defending him? I'm not, I'm saying let's not blame his wife for not stopping him when the police service in general and more than one force, and colleagues and senior officers - those charged with protecting us, even with reports and evidence, didn't.

Wonder what the attraction was, he's not even good looking.
I don't know the answer to that any more than you do. But her being attracted to him doesn't make her responsible for his behaviour.

He didn't even care about his children
How could he put them through that?
Imagine growing up knowing what your dad's done?
**
Don't know how these kind of people aren't embarrassed and ashamed at what they've put everyone through?

I'd hazard a guess because no one is more important to that man than him and fulfilling his abusive and murderous urges - that and the fact he thought he was too clever to ever get caught and too protected to be held accountable if he did.
People like him simply don't care about anyone else, oh they claim to after the fact but they wouldn't have done it in the first place if they did.

Yeah this.

Police is well know for attracting criminals, they do bloody well out of the job. Unfailing loyalty and protection while they do what the hell they like

This.

I dated a guy in the Kent police years ago, and was out with a bunch of them one night. They were talking (laughing) about one of the group being a flasher as well as a recreational drug user, and I’m pretty sure it was WC.

It wouldn’t surprise me if previous exposure incidents either weren’t logged against his name, or conveniently overlooked / minimised / excused.