What's the actual uk law on past offences?

Opps...

...where the public interest is highly demonstrable.

However, some people may hypothetically keep making legal challenges simply because the process to fight back is time consuming and can be expensive.

Process as punishment and the aim is not always to win, but to put people off commenting.

I don't think you have to state this no. But again I stand to be corrected.

There are some cases where the public interest is blindingly obvious.

That doesn't however stop the person with the conviction legally challenging your disclosure and as a precaution, whilst that challenge is "in play" a website or social media platform closing down discussion.

The likelihood of that person being successful in their challenge is however tenuous we

One would hope that these discussions over legal ins and outs would be live discussions for MNHQ and their legal bods. It would be good to know for any such situations that may arise what their legal standing is.

I stand to be corrected but a hypothetical example of malice.

Let's just imagine OP you I were friends and I'd disclosed to you in confidence that I had a spent conviction for fraud.

Then we fell out because I criticised your attempts at knitting bobble hats on Facebook and you plastered my spent conviction all over your social media "saying I might be a crap knitter but I've not been jailed for fraud" (and giving all the juicy details ) then that would be malice.

The only reason you disclosed this information publicly was to get back at me. The information wasn't widely known nor was it in the public interest because I don't work in finance/ hold any voluntary positions that involve finance, nor do i campaign on changing the law in areas related to my conviction.

On the other hand, let's say you know about the fraud but also that I'd applied to be treasurer of the PTA then disclosing the information would not be malicious because there was public interest in doing so, irrespective of the falling out. Though you'd be wise to separate the two things and not make the disclosure on the back of your bobble hats being criticised.

Thanks to the actions of a notorious litigant in person, there’s now a very high bar to harassment via publication. I had better not link to judgements in case they identify Voldehat.

Harassment also has an element of intent to it.

In one judgement, a judge said he found it hard to understand why a person was constantly visiting a fruit farming website if he felt the website was harassing him. A website cannot harass someone.

The judge also gave Paddington Bear hard stares to the claimant who swore blind in court, despite evidence to the contrary, that he had not operated his own abusive socks on this alleged site of harassment and hate.

Even if it’s just a picture of a hat?

Thanks, @Lyingflawyer

I am not a judge but I think that would prove an extremely strong argument in court @Boiledbeetlebeing devoid of all malice.

Coupled with the additional bits you mentioned, that's what I thought.

😀

I am not a judge but I think that would prove an extremely strong argument in court @Boiledbeetle being devoid of all malice.

Another argument in the hypothetical case you raise, could be if that man had attempted to persuade public thinking or alter public policy on highly controversial matters.

Say, for example, using once again your hypothetical example, the gentlemen you were talking about, had groomed and sexually assaulted a schoolchild well under the age of consent.

If they then went on to make a public figure of themselves, deriding the age of consent, or attacking the child sex abuse commission as being an unnecessary waste of time, or if they attempted to argue that children could consent to puberty blockers, then there would be a very strong argument that their previous conviction was public interest.

Apologies, I'm just thinking out loud.

In case someone decided to argue the fact that despite the information already having been widely disseminated, to hundreds or thousands, or even millions of people, the public interest argument was still worth pursuing…

So, let’s say I personally am interested in people who get a conviction for rape or sexual assault and then go on to commit other crimes for example murder or physical assault.

And let’s say I know a convicted child rapist who was then convicted for murder of an adult who then looped back round to being a child rapist. Maybe it’s even my special area of interest. I might then be interested in cases that follow the same trajectory, rape or sexual assault then murder or physical assault.

It might always make me wonder if the person will loop back round to their original crime.

So, I would naturally be interested, as would other members of the public I’m sure, to know about similar cases. So, if I was aware of a case where the gentleman involved committed a sexual assault on a child and then went on to commit a physical assault on an adult, I may feel that that is in the public interest to know, and go on to talk about it to people who may, or may not, have already been aware of the details.

Mainly, in my mind, because it is obvious in the murder case, and in the physical assault case the original sentence for these heinous crimes (a) wasn’t severe enough, and (b) seemed to embolden the convicted person to go on and commit a further crime, which got an equally lenient sentence.

This would be something I think people should be aware of and able to discuss, not as a hypothetical but using already known, widely, or not, disseminated cases that are already in the public domain. There would be no malice behind my behaviour, merely a need to understand what makes this sort of man tick and to enable a wider conversation.

Also interesting to note that the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act does not apply to US visa law, meaning that persons that have certain convictions, even ones that would be deemed spent in the UK, are ineligible under the ESTA visa waiver scheme and such persons must apply for a visa to visit the US.

@Boiledbeetle nothing at all.

If you were dealing with a a litigious person you might need to demonstrate in court both that your intention was not malicious, it could for example be by way of right of reply, and also that the publication is in the public interest, the public interest element being something that a court would need to adjudicate on.

But if the information about your hypothetical gentleman was already being widely disseminated, then it would be a moot point.

Whilst this means prior offenders are not obliged to disclose offences after the period by which they become spent, this does not equate to a gagging order on others raising the previous offences.

@Lyingflawyer

So, if I, say for example, know of a gentleman who has a previous conviction and on sentencing was put on the sex offenders register for a period of time there is nothing that can stop me from repeating that information and other details about the case, even after the person is no longer on the sex offenders register and any other parts of their sentencing have been served/completed/paid? And also any other convictions or incidents they may have been involved in?

@ILikeDungs

Ironically your example of a GC figure with criminal convictions being dropped from media is exactly what certain people are trying to achieve, using their own protected status as a lever.

To clarify @Silverdogblue - not attacking you personally, I think you have confused convictions which are ‘spent’ and those which are ‘quashed’.

Only if a conviction is quashed is it as if it never happened, because that’s what to quash something is - to say the conviction was wrong. Spent convictions remain a matter of public record as matters of fact and remain logged on the PNC (Police National Computer). They never get erased unless quashed.

Secondly, the purpose of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act was to enable offenders to move on after a certain period of time as to prevent employers and insurers discriminating against people with past convictions.

Whilst this means prior offenders are not obliged to disclose offences after the period by which they become spent, this does not equate to a gagging order on others raising the previous offences.

The idea that someone can successfully sue for defamation for mentioning a previous conviction is somewhat odd given s8 of the Act itself (s8.3) gives the right of the defendant in an action for defamation the right to the defences of justification (ie, ‘truth’) or fair comment (ie, public interest), subject to the proviso that what was published (even if true) was not published maliciously, which does not usually apply to the defence of justification - ie, unlike in other defamation cases, you cannot publish it, even if true, if the motive is not for the public good and deemed necessary in the public interest.

To decide what is in the public interest the courts will look at the conduct of the offender claimant, and decide whether in the circumstances publication was justified.

So, if for example the offender claimant was someone who has little or no public profile and is a person who has rehabilitated himself etc, publication is hard to justify in those circumstances.

However where the person is a public figure who seeks public attention, or is controversial, etc, then publication may absolutely be justified.

In summary, if you were a prior offender with multiple convictions for sexual, violence and dishonesty offences, the last thing on earth you should do is seek attention, or become a public figure, or become controversial. Or commit further offences. If you do, your past is fair game irrespective of the convictions being spent.

If you are convicted in a public court then tough luck, especially if you are building up a profile as a “broadcaster” or “public figure”.

Exactly. Let's say, just hypothetically, a GC woman (insert your favourite GC voice here) had been convicted of attacking someone with a weapon in a fit of rage. She was also found guilty of a sexual crime against a child. Say she did her "time" but now manipulates Company House to avoid paying taxes while at the same time getting benefits, and badgers people she doesn't like in the courts using her "poor" status to ensure it is all paid for by the taxpayer. And say she harasses people online continues with various antisocial activities.

Would that GC woman ever be called upon as a public figure, an expert in any field, and interviewed on telly? Would she be on any list as a "go to"? Would she be able to silence anyone? I can't imagine it.

“Under the ROA, when a conviction has become spent, it is as though, for most purposes, it has never occurred. You are not obliged to disclose a spent conviction, and you should not be prejudiced as a result of one. This means that in law, for a media organisation to report your spent conviction amounts to an untruth, meaning that they are open to accusations of defamation.”

With respect, this is not true. Section 8 of the RoA Act provides an absolute defence to any claim for defamation if the statement is true.

I suspect this is being used as an angle. “The convictions is spent so it’s as if it never happened”. Nope - that would be if a conviction was quashed, not spent.

The RoA Act is about not discriminating against those with previous convictions in employment. Not about silencing and erasing the past as it it never happened.

Cat. Bag.

More seriously though, perhaps the Reduxx article can be linked and that's about it.

Which is fine, it can be linked to as many times as we want.

I fear it will take a horrible incident before the name-changing DBS loop-hole is properly scrutinised.

Does MN have opening and closing times?

A thread in site stuff was closed over night and still locked 👀

Quite funny though 🤣

This is the maddest game of whack-a-mole I've seen on here
3 - 2 - 1

Public interest not internet.

If someone was featured by a national broadcaster for their expertise (say, someone who styled themselves as a climate change expert but not any kind of actual scientist as this post is totally theoretical) and they had a spent conviction for sexual assault, would that not be in the public internet?