DBS certificate- can they include a crime you haven't been arrested for?

[squarecorners]

Last year was a very stressful time for my family- in the heat of the moment my other half hit out at our little boy. Because I was angry at him, confused and needed to talk to someone I told someone who reported it to social services and the police. Although what he did was completely unacceptable to me I did not want the police involved because I believed that our family would not be helped by dad being arrested and potentially losing his livelihood. Suffice it to say there was no issue before or since- it was a moment of very high stress for everyone and he did something he admits is not acceptable.
The social services investigation concluded that we as a family would access some welfare support through the forces (husband is ex army and the stress was a result of that) but the police would record an assault against my child and my husband as a suspect. I said no comment without my solicitor to the police, and they never arrested or questioned him, me or my child.
My husband has today been offered a job where he needs a DBS cert (unclear at what level). It's not working directly with children or vulnerable people. Is this likely to come up on a DBS certificate? This job is so important to us as a family, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if he lost it.

[TheVastMajority]

As far as I know, he was not cautioned or convicted, or even questioned, therefore DBS should be clear.

Innocent until proven guilty

[prh47bridge]

I'm afraid TheVastMajority is wrong. An enhanced DBS can include any information the police consider to be relevant. That can include non-conviction information. For example, if someone is being considered for a job working with children and they are under investigation as a suspected member of a paedophile ring, the police can disclose that.

The information should only be disclosed if it is relevant. Even if it is disclosed, the employer should not automatically withdraw the job. They should consider whether this makes the potential employee an unacceptable risk.

As the job is not working with children or vulnerable adults the incident may not be relevant. But, if your husband is concerned, the best thing is to talk to the employer and explain what happened. If it is on his DBS it is far more likely that the employer will accept it if he has been open about it.

[TheVastMajority]

I stand corrected.

Personal experience ... person in my household was interviewed for carrying a concealed weapon... no charges made, , and nothing on very recent enhanced DBS.

[prh47bridge]

The requirements for including non-conviction information in a DBS check are very high. As a result only 0.25% of enhanced checks include any such information. To put it another way, roughly one enhanced check in 4,000 includes non-conviction information.

Note that, if this is a standard DBS check, it will not include non-conviction information. Without knowing the type of job involved I don't know whether it will be an enhanced check or a standard one.

[Anythingforacatslife]

It would depend what the dbs check was for. If it is for working with children or vulnerable adults then I would expect it to be included, and quite rightly. If it’s a potentially stressful job then someone needs to assess whether he can cope with that, and needs to have all relevant information available to them.

[squarecorners]

Thanks for your responses guys, I'm fairly confident now this shouldn't be included as like I said originally it's not for a job directly working with children or vulnerable adults (I have an enhanced one for both). As far as I'm aware it's only a standard one so I think we are fine.