What was claimed
A tweet claims to be from Essex Police describing its recruitment strategy.
Our verdict
Essex Police confirm that the tweet has been “manipulated” and is “fake”.
‘Tweet’ on Essex Police recruitment is fake
6 March 2023
A fake tweet with thousands of retweets claims to outline Essex Police’s recruitment strategy.
However, the police service confirmed that the image had been manipulated.
The doctored image shows a fake screenshot of a post appearing to come from Essex Police’s Twitter account.
It says: “We’re hiring! Essex Police aims to be the first country-level Police Force in Britain composed of at least 50% Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic officers!
“If you’re from the correct background you can submit a streamlined application without your CV at essex.police.uk/fitthebill”.
The image has been shared on both Twitter and Facebook, with one post shared by musicians Right Said Fred receiving over 700,000 views.
Full Fact contacted Right Said Fred to see if they would correct their post, but had not received a response at the time of writing.
Responding to the Tweet, Essex Police said: “This image has been manipulated. It is fake and has never appeared on our social accounts as part of our recruitment campaign.
“The wording does not reflect the Essex Police recruitment strategy.”
The force’s Twitter feed does not show the fake tweet.
Essex Police has also directed social media users to its website, where their We Value Difference recruitment campaign is promoted.
The campaign, which launched in September 2020, “focuses on dispelling the myths that you have to be a certain ‘type’ of person to be a police officer.”
It says: “We Value Difference predominantly focuses on nine strands of difference: personality, age, cultural background, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, language, education and faith.”
Elsewhere on the website, it says that the force offers two Positive Action initiatives for candidates from underrepresented backgrounds.
However, there is nothing on the website that suggests people from certain backgrounds can submit a “streamlined application” without a CV, as the fake tweet suggests.
Spreading misinformation about police services can have a harmful impact on their reputation and ability to carry out their roles.
Full Fact has previously fact checked other false claims about police forces, including that 52% of officers are guilty of sexual misconduct and that the Metropolitan Police launched an investigation into the Covid-19 vaccine programme, among others.
Full Fact contacted Essex Police for further comment.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as false because Essex Police has confirmed that the tweet is fake.