To ask what it means when a police investigation is classified as ‘no crime’

[TheObstinateHeadstrongGirl]

One for police experts really - I don’t want to give details away but this is for a close family member looking into something about an allegation made around a decade ago.

If a crime has been reported, investigated, and then no charge made, and ‘classified as ‘no crime’’ - what does that actually mean?

Does it mean not enough evidence to make a charge?
Or does it mean no crime took place eg a false allegation?
Is ‘classified as no crime’ even a thing??

It seems google is throwing up nothing 🙄

I was arrested, interviewed, the police were satisfied I had committed no crime, and it was 'no crimed'. It doesn't show up on DBS checks although I suspect my enhanced check takes longer while they look at the record to see if its relevant (its not). I guess it is the opposite of charged?

I believe that crimes can be 'no crimes' if a crime didn't take place. For example - I report my purse as missing - I later find the purse and the crime of theft is 'no crimed'. Or a crime is recorded in error and as it cannot be deleted - it is 'no crimed'.

Does it mean that the invested incident is not a criminal act? Ie
. No law has been broken. It may be a civil matter but not a criminal one.

I’m no expert (sorry I know you want experts) but I think it most likely does mean that the allegation/s were not of a criminal nature.
Id assume, from reporting SA myself and no further action being taken because of a lack of independent evidence that the allegation is recorded like that, rather than “no crime”.
I could be wrong though

Thank you - and DBS info is especially helpful.

Again I won’t give details but a family member was accused of a crime they did not commit and it was acknowledged at the time. They have a letter confirming it was ‘classified as ‘no crime’’ from the time and have applied for a job requiring a DBS check. It’s just in case it comes up. They have rang the local force who issued the letter but they had no idea and neither did Google so it just seemed like it was a non-thing if that makes sense.

We know they didn’t commit this crime but want this to be enough for the new workplace if it does come up on a DBS.

It’s where they’ve concluded that there’s no reasonable belief that a crime took place. As the examples above. It’s also where a crime might have taken place but there’s not enough proof it did to continue an investigation (to build on the purse example, if you lost your purse and you don’t know if you lost it or it was pickpocketed).

I believe you can apply to see what your police record shows, google it and there's a link for how to request.

Social worker here so see lots of people's police records! No crimes/crimed is term that used to be used for police records that are cancelled - when they think crime did not take place or was recorded in error. I don't think it's typically used on systems now, should say cancelled but it's still the terminology used by a lot of police.

National Crime Recording Standards (England and Wales) are very clear when a crime must be recorded by Police and each constabulary has a Crime Registrar to ensure that rules are abided by. In reality some constabularies are better than others but once a crime has been recorded it's quite difficult to have it classified as "No Crime" This means that following investigation no offence has taken place (see example earlier about an item reported as stolen that was simply lost and turns up again). Another common reason to No Crime is that a constabulary may record a crime in their area which turns out to have been committed in another area (you are harassed by mobile phone by an ex-partner and you don't know where they live, crime recording standards say that the force that the crime is reported to should record the crime but once it is established where it took place the constabulary where the phone call originated from should record the crime and the original force should then "no crime" their offence.
Sorry that's so long winded.