What is the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act?
The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 gives people with spent convictions and cautions the right not to disclose them when applying for jobs and buying insurance. Essentially, it enables some criminal convictions to be ignored after a rehabilitation period. The purpose of the Rehabilitation of Offenders act is that people do not have lifelong marks on their records because of a minor offence.
What Is A Conviction?
You may have a conviction if you have either pleaded guilty to a crime or have been found to be guilty of a crime. A previous conviction may be asked about by employers, insurance companies, and if you are applying for a visa to go abroad. If you have a conviction against your name, then you would only have to tell people about it for a certain amount of time. After a certain amount of time, your conviction could become known as “spent”
Spent And Unspent Convictions
Spent convictions are those convictions that have reached a set period, which is determined by the sentence and the date of the conviction. Spent convictions are removed from an individual’s criminal record. Unspent convictions are those records that have not reached the defined time. These will appear on a basic criminal record check.
If your conviction is unspent then you most likely won’t be able to work with children or vulnerable adults. You may also not be able to work outside of England and Wales. This is due to the fact that Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own version of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. Travelling abroad may also be difficult, as well as entering the UK, so bear this in mind when you think about travelling.
What doesn’t it cover?
There are various different reasons why convictions can’t become spent. The reasons are:
- Convictions for which a prison sentence of more than 48 months has been imposed
- Convictions for sexual offences
- Convictions imposed against corporate bodies
The government has an entire list of convictions and crimes that cannot become spent, you can find that list here.
How do I work out if my convictions are spent?
The rehabilitation period is determined by the type of disposal administered or the length of the sentence imposed. It is calculated from the date of the conviction or the date of caution administered. The rehabilitation periods are shown in the table above.
Which parts of the UK does the 1974 Act apply to?
The act applies in England, Scotland and Wales. However, there are some differences in the way in which this legislation and other legislations operate in Scotland.
What can we do if you have spent your conviction?
If you have spent your conviction, and it is in line with the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act UK, we can help you to have the content removed. If you have noticed any negative posts being written about you online, then we can help to remove these posts. If you have negative posts written about you online, then when a potential employer searches your name on search engines, they could find all these negative posts.
By removing these negative links, then when someone searches for your name, either nothing will come up relating to you, or only positives. We can also help build your reputation, by helping with your reputation management. We can help to create positive content that will be posted in your name.
This is to help the negative information to be pushed further down the search results, and the positive information to be the first thing people see for your name. This process is a much easier approach than taking the case to court. We can help you to remove the negatives and you wouldn’t have to do anything, we do all the work for you!