Serial rapist police officer passed vetting despite warnings, BBC reveals

Police vetting failure allowed serial rapist into uniform despite prior criminal record

Constantvpn.com – A Scottish police officer later identified as a violent serial rapist was cleared to join the force in 2009 even though vetting staff already knew of at least one formal police caution on his file for offences against women. The finding, disclosed through investigative reporting, exposes a gap between what the force’s own procedures demanded and what actually happened at the recruitment stage.

PC Alan Greer ended his own life in May, just days after officers raided his home as part of an investigation into offences stretching back to 2012. He had served for 17 years by the time of his death. The investigation that followed uncovered a pattern of attempted murders and serious sexual assaults, including the rape of a vulnerable woman within hours of meeting her during a shift. It also emerged that Greer had contact with hundreds of sex workers across his career and violently assaulted many of them, and that he took inappropriate photographs of female colleagues while working in police officer safety training.

Police Scotland has so far identified 15 victims, though investigators and advocates fear the true figure is considerably higher.

Two prior offences before joining the force

The timeline of Greer’s pre-recruitment record is now clear. In 2002, Strathclyde Police investigated him for making inappropriate phone calls to a woman in Glasgow. The matter was referred to the procurator fiscal, but no further action followed. Three years later, in 2005, the Metropolitan Police issued him a formal police caution after he was again caught making inappropriate phone calls, this time directed at a woman he knew in London.

Four years on, in 2009, Strathclyde Police accepted Greer into the force. Police Scotland has now confirmed that the vetting unit reviewing his application was aware of the 2005 caution. A partial paper vetting record survives, and the caution is referenced within it. Whether the earlier 2002 matter also formed part of the interview process, or was visible to vetting staff at that time, remains unclear. However, sources familiar with the records say the 2002 “adverse trace” would “absolutely” have been discoverable on Greer’s file.

Internal rules contradicted by practice

The force’s own Standard Operating Procedures handbook, published in 2006, set out a straightforward principle:

“The force should not recruit people with cautions or convictions, which may call into question the integrity of the applicant or the force.”

A police source described the oversight in blunt terms:

“Two reported crimes related to women before he joined should have been raising all sorts of alarm bells. He was clearly a menace from the off and should never have been allowed near a uniform to abuse his position.”

Police Scotland walks back earlier assurances

The vetting finding lands against a backdrop of shifting official commentary. Last month, Police Scotland told the BBC there had been no “missed opportunities over the years” to identify Greer’s offending sooner. When pressed further, the force moved to clarify its position, stating it had “provided answers to questions relating to Alan Greer’s offending during the course of his police career” and did not believe it had been answering questions specifically about his vetting record.

Assistant Chief Constable Lynn Ratcliff, who addressed the matter publicly, offered the following when asked whether opportunities existed to stop Greer’s offending earlier:

“At this point, and we will keep it under review, there is nothing to suggest that there have been any missed opportunities over the years.”

Pressed again on whether there were no missed red flags, she added:

“At this stage, we’ve got no evidence to suggest that is the case…”

On the specific question of vetting, ACC Ratcliff said the vetting landscape is “markedly different” today and that Greer would not have passed current checks, but she did not elaborate further. She noted that officers are now subject to annual integrity testing and routine re-vetting — safeguards that did not exist in the form they do today.

Independent review and systemic context

Craig Naylor, chief inspector for HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS), led a review into Police Scotland’s vetting processes in 2023. His work examined how recruitment checks operated in the period surrounding Greer’s entry into the force and assessed whether the framework of the time was adequate to catch the kind of prior record he carried.

The broader context matters. Police vetting in Scotland has evolved substantially since the late 2000s. Annual integrity testing, continuous re-vetting of serving officers, and tighter digital record-keeping are now standard. The partial paper record that survived for Greer’s 2009 application reflects an era when documentation was less systematic, yet the existence of that record — with the caution explicitly noted — undercuts any argument that the information was simply unavailable.

The case raises questions that extend beyond one officer’s file. If a formal caution issued by another force was visible to vetting staff and yet did not trigger rejection or enhanced scrutiny, what other prior records may have been noted but not acted upon? The answer, or the continued absence of one, will shape public confidence in the force’s ability to police its own gates.

For the families of Greer’s victims, the vetting finding adds a layer of institutional failure to an already devastating sequence of events. The question they face is not merely whether one officer was harmed by a broken process, but whether the process itself was ever designed to catch what needed catching.