To be asking questions about ex co worker

[ellie09]

Just wanting to know am I thinking too much into this or being overly sensitive with wanting some answers?

I worked with a colleague last year for 6 months who joined my previous employment as an intern, so he was in his early 20s. We got on really well and I became a sort of "mentor" for him as well in work as was training him the majority of the time.

Over the course of the 6 months he was there, we bonded very well and I considered him my work "best friend". We had a lot of laughs, had discussed our disastrous dating stories and gave each other some advice, so I had confided in him some personal details about some difficult situations I was going through, including a sextortion case with my ex husband.

I also gave him lifts to wherever he needed to go if we finished at the same time and socialised outside of work with him as well as well became good friends.

Once he left, he disappeared. Phone number deactivated, social media deleted and we were all wondering where he went to.

I was sent a news article the other day which reported that he had been sentenced to 4 years in prison for a violent sexual assault. He was on bail awaiting sentencing when he was employed with my previous employment, so essentially he was convicted.

I am not sure why this has affected me so much but I feel so upset and betrayed and left wondering why I and other girls I worked with were ever let around this man if he had done these things. Senior management did not know either.

Am I being unreasonable to ask HR what their policies are with hiring people with such convictions? I know at times they can be, but I am starting to wonder if a background check was done at all.

Even though nothing happened (thank goodness!) It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth that other opportunities were presented to him with his time there.

He regularly gloated about sleeping with various women, even in the company and now the thought of it is making me feel ill.

Just let it be a lesson to you not to trust people just because you spend every day with them.

I don’t think you’re unreasonable at all to ask about the protocols and policies in place during the recruitment process.
Depending completely on the industry or type of role, there is a very good chance people can lie and get away with it but there should at least be a process in place to ask these questions and to validate the answers where needed.

Id be asking the same questions too, if they didn’t know, why not. And if they did know, how did they assume to maintain the safety of their employees (or anyone he came into contact with).

Normal office jobs don't do any form of dbs check so how woujd a company pick it up?

A reference may mention it but that relies on that employer knowing -you don't have to inform employers you have been arrested in general.

My previous employment did a DB check on me and every other person, he wasn't arrested either, he had been found guilty by trial a few months prior and was out for whatever reason until his sentencing.

It may be that doesn't come up anyhow until sentencing completed but if so that's a big gap in the system

I can't see why you confided in a young man about sextortion with an abusive ex, when that young man was gloating about having sex with members of staff.

I can understand you're really upset you were put in that position, what with his trial etc, but ffs, your boundaries are really skewed, too.

A DB check would only pick up conviction. At the time of onboarding, he wouldn’t have had a conviction… he might not even have been charged at that point

Very few ordinary private offices do dbs checks, and anyway, innocent until proven guilty.
In theory if the police had considered him a serious risk, he would have been on remand awaiting trial. He wasn't. Maybe he hadn't even been charged.

Just be careful who you get close to or share details with in future.

At the point of employment getting had been found guilty by trial and was awaiting sentencing so not sure if it would until after the sentencing hearing. I have little experience in this area unfortunately

He regularly gloated about sleeping with various women, even in the company and now the thought of it is making me feel ill.

Those inappropriate indiscretions about female colleagues by a trainee you were mentoring, should have made you feel ill at the time.

Yes. He was waving red flags.

There are strict rules around which roles can be DBS checked and not. Companies can be fined for checking people whose roles don’t need DBS. If he wasn’t working with vulnerable children or adults a DBS would probably not have shown it anyway.

Six months between conviction and sentencing doesn't sound right to me.

I would like to add that once he started becoming quite vulgar about his experiences with women, I had actually started an argument with him about it and kept a distance there after. Me and the other girls regularly responded to his gloating, telling him it was disgusting and to wise up, but there were an odd few that found it funny.

I think I have good boundaries. I had confided in this person as he was the one person I was speaking to regularly every day, and sitting beside him, and had asked me why I was visibly upset when coming into work. I had spent years keeping my personal life separate from my work life, but after therapy, my therapist suggested that I actually become more open and learn to confide in people, especially in the work place where I spent 10+ hours per day with these people. He wasn't the only one. I also had to tell my direct managers as I was out frequently for police interviews etc