Met Police Relaxes No-Tattoo Policy In Bid To Attract 2,000 New Officers

26 September 2018, 13:28 | Updated: 26 September 2018, 13:30

The Met Police is relaxing its no-tattoo policy as part of a drive to attract 2,000 new officers over the next year.

Commissioner Cressida Dick told Nick Ferrari about 10 per cent of potential recruits were immediately ruled out last year just because they had tattoos.

She says that policy has now been relaxed and hopes it will show the Met is a “modern service”.

New recruits will also no longer have to pay £1,000 up front as part of their mandatory training.

But, Commissioner Dick added those with tattoos, including full-arm sleeves, would be asked to cover them up at times.

She told LBC “An extraordinary number of people, about 10 per cent last year, were immediately ruled out - people who wanted to join us but had tattoos and we had a very, very strict policy.

“So we’ve relaxed it a bit. What it does mean is that there may be, for example, if you had a small tattoo on the back of your neck, if you had a tattoo on your forearm we would allow that but there may be times where we ask you to cover it up.”

The starting salary for a new police constable in the Met is £27,105 plus allowances.

Commissioner Dick hopes the new recruitment campaign will see the number of police officers rise to 30,750.