Police Scotland Knew Serial Rapist Officer Alan Greer Had a 2005 Caution Before Hiring Him in 2009

Alan Greer joined Strathclyde Police in 2009 with a formal police caution already on his record. The force's own vetting staff knew about it. They hired him anyway.

A BBC Disclosure investigation published Friday, August 28, 2026 found that Greer had been investigated twice before he ever put on a uniform. Strathclyde Police looked into him in 2002 over inappropriate phone calls to a woman in Glasgow. The case went to the procurator fiscal but no charges followed. In 2005, the Metropolitan Police issued him a formal caution for making similar calls to a woman in London.

Four years later, Strathclyde's vetting unit knew about the caution and let him in regardless, according to a partial paper vetting record cited by BBC and the Express. Sources told BBC the 2002 case would "absolutely" have been discoverable too, though it remains unclear whether vetting staff actually pulled it at the time.

A rulebook the force didn't follow

Strathclyde Police's own 2006 Standard Operating Procedures said the force "should not recruit people with cautions or convictions, which may call into question the integrity of the applicant or the force," according to the Express and Daily Mail. Greer had exactly that kind of caution on file three years before he was hired.

Craig Naylor, who led a 2023 HM Inspectorate of Constabulary in Scotland (HMICS) review of Police Scotland's vetting processes, was direct when BBC asked him about it. "My view is that he should never have got in at that point," Naylor said. Asked directly if these were missed opportunities, he said: "Yes." The Daily Mail quoted him adding, "When I've run vetting in the past, he would not have got in."

That 2023 HMICS inquiry, separate from the Greer case, had already found significant gaps in Police Scotland's vetting system, including a failure to re-vet officers on a regular basis.

What Greer did for 17 years

Greer served as a police officer for nearly 17 years before he took his own life in May 2026, days after officers raided his home as part of an investigation into offending dating back to 2012, according to BBC and the Daily Record. Police Scotland launched one of its largest-ever anti-corruption inquiries into him after a woman reported being raped.

The Daily Record reports that woman is believed to be his first known victim. She called police to report a crime in 2012, uniformed officers took her statement and left, and Greer returned alone hours later, forced her into a sexual act, and raped her.

Investigators have since identified 15 victims total, including at least five sex workers attacked while Greer was off duty. He had contact with hundreds of prostitutes over his career, according to all four UK outlets covering the story, and is understood to have taken inappropriate photographs of female colleagues while working in officer safety training. Police Scotland has said it fears the true number of victims is higher than 15.

The walk-back

When BBC first reported on Greer's offending in July, Assistant Chief Constable Lynn Ratcliff told reporters there was "nothing to suggest that there have been any missed opportunities over the years" to catch him sooner. Pressed on whether there were any missed red flags, she said: "At this stage, we've got no evidence to suggest that is the case."

Ratcliff did tell BBC the vetting landscape is "markedly different" today and that Greer would not pass current checks. She said officers now face annual integrity testing and routine re-vetting. She didn't offer further detail on what, if anything, went wrong in 2009.

Once BBC came back with the vetting-record findings, Police Scotland changed its framing. The force said its earlier comments were about Greer's conduct "during the course of his policing career," not about the vetting decision that let him join in the first place. A Police Scotland spokesman told the Daily Mail: "The investigation has not established any information during his career which could have resulted in his criminal behaviour being identified at an earlier stage," and said the 2009 recruitment and vetting process will be examined as part of an independent external review.

Whether officers missed chances to catch Greer once he was already a cop is a separate question from whether he should have been hired at all. Police Scotland's initial answer, that there were no missed opportunities, left out the specific finding BBC was digging into. The Daily Mail and Express both flagged that gap directly.

What's unresolved

A confidential briefing document prepared by the senior investigating officer in June, shared with the Scottish government and Scottish Police Authority, reportedly stated that under current rules Greer "would not have been granted Recruitment Vetting," according to the Express. Yet when the SPA board met publicly on July 30, members were not given the full details of Greer's vetting history, the Express reports.

It's not yet established who at Strathclyde's vetting unit made the 2009 hiring call, whether the 2002 Glasgow case was actually reviewed alongside the 2005 caution, or what the promised independent external review will find once it examines the original recruitment file. Police Scotland has not said when that review will conclude.