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