FACT

The vetting system at the heart of the Criminal Records Bureau was criticised yesterday after it emerged that nearly 200 people applying for jobs had been wrongly branded as having a criminal record.The errors, which took place over a 13-month period, arose when details of applicants submitted for checks to the CRB were similar or identical to those with criminal records. In a number of cases, innocent job applicants were also wrongly tarnished after convicts attempted to avoid police records by providing false names.The bureau has been blighted by a series of errors since it was set up two years ago to provide checks on people wanting to work with children.

Independent