Boris - hoist by his own petard

Only last Tuesday, Boris the jokey lounge-bar ranter (as opposed to Boris the joke Mayor) , writing in his £250,000 year Telegraph column, bemoaned all the checks that have to be gone through before employing people to work with young people:

...anyone who wants to help with grassroots sports coaching must go through an enormous Criminal Records Bureau procedure, and submit to 6in-thick files dictating exactly how the children can be exhorted to do better without hurting their feelings.

...That paragraph makes Boris look very silly now. We find that it seems that Boris presided over very scanty checks on Ray Lewis, detailed below by the Evening Standard. The Norfolk Blogger has further details which suggest that Lewis took tips in CV-writing from Jeffrey Archer. This would all suggest that those who feared that Boris was a bumbling incompetent, unfit to lead a large organisation, were right.

The Evening Standard unpicked the various checks on Lewis, or lack of them, yesterday afternoon before Lewis resigned:

A City Hall spokesman insisted that the Mayor and his officials were satisfied Mr Lewis had been adequately checked, and repeated the claim that he had been vetted as a magistrate. (But the Ministry of Justice said firmly that Lewis had not been appointed as a magistrate).

"Boris appointed a man who had been vetted as a magistrate, a prison governor, who had set up a charity and worked with children. He has been through the strongest vetting process outside of MI5," said the spokesman.

The Evening Standard has learned his employment status at City Hall meant he was eligible for a criminal records bureau check - but one was not carried out because officials accepted that he had already been cleared for earlier employment.

Crucially, officials also declined to take the opportunity to request an "enhanced" check. That would have revealed details of his arrest over an allegation of deception. It would have potentially given the Mayor information about other concerns relating to Mr Lewis's previous conduct.

Mr Lewis served as a junior prison governor in 2000 and 2001, but this was before the criminal records bureau was set up. His background would have been checked in some form by prison authorities, but it is unknown how extensive vetting would have been.

He would have been subject to a standard criminal records bureau check in his post as head of the Eastside Young Leaders Academy in Newham, but this would only have revealed any convictions - which he does not have - rather than details of any arrest or other unproven concerns.