All police forces were told on Wednesday to check their officers and staff against national police databases to identify further rogue officers who need to be removed in the wake of the David Carrick scandal.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman has also asked the College of Policing to strengthen police vetting rules by making them stricter and clearer, as well as legally binding.
Announcing the reforms, Ms Braverman said: “David Carrick’s sickening crimes are a stain on the police and he should never have been allowed to remain as an officer for so long.
“We are taking immediate steps to ensure predatory individuals are not only rooted out of the force, but that vetting and standards are strengthened to ensure they cannot join the police in the first place.”
Martin Hewitt, the head of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, which will implement the Home Secretary’s edict, said chief constables would be “rooting abusers and those who betray our standards out of policing.”
He added: “The confidence of women and girls in London and across the country in the police has been damaged further by the details of David Carrick’s decades long violent and degrading abuse of women and the police failures to spot and stop him.
“We will be asking all police forces to further check their officers and staff against national police databases.
“This will help identify anyone who has slipped through the net before vetting standards were toughened and remove those who are unfit to serve. We are currently working through the detail of how this can best be achieved across policing.”
Carrick’s case has plunged Scotland Yard into a fresh crisis, after it emerged a string of opportunities to reveal his true character were missed.
Ms Braverman has also asked the College of Policing to strengthen the statutory code of practice for police vetting, making the obligations all forces must legally follow stricter and clearer.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, Rishi Sunak told MPs that Carrick’s crimes were a “truly sickening” abuse of power and promised police reforms so offenders would have “no place to hide”.
Mr Sunak will meet Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley later on Wednesday, the Home Office said.
The news comes as Rishi Sunak on Wednesday promised police reforms to make sure offenders have “no place to hide” after Carrick’s “truly sickening” crimes.
The Prime Minister told MPs the police “must address the failings in this case, restore public confidence and ensure the safety of women and girls”.
“I know members from across the House will be as shocked and as appalled as I am about the case of David Carrick,” he told the Commons.
“The abuse of power is truly sickening and our thoughts are with his victims.
“The police must address the failings in this case, restore public confidence and ensure the safety of women and girls.
“There will be no place to hide for those who use their position to intimidate those women and girls, or those who have failed to act to reprimand or remove those people from office.”
Carrick, 48, is facing life in prison after pleading guilty to a total of 49 offences, including 24 counts of rape, against 12 women between 2003 and 2020.
He joined the force in 2001 before becoming an armed officer in the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection (PaDP) unit in 2009.
He subjected at least a dozen victims to appalling physical and emotional abuse over the course of 18 years, while wielding his status as a police officer to ensure they stayed silent.
The armed officer, who help to guard politicians and VIPs for more than a decade as a trusted member of the Met’s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command, forced the women into humiliating and degrading sexual acts, whipped one with a belt, and kept some locked for hours inside a tiny cupboard.
Carrick was formally dismissed from the Met on Tuesday for gross misconduct.
He is currently in custody, and is due to be sentenced next month.
