Old conviction still appearing on enhanced DBS after seven years

[itshereagain]

Seven years ago I was convicted of a crime, nothing violent or sexual. It shouldn’t show on an enhanced dbs according to everything I’ve researched once six years have passed but it does. Wondering if I need to do something in particular to remove it.

It would be unusual for driving whilst disqualified to be dealt with via a caution. If the police definitely offered you a caution and you accepted it, and it definitely did not go to court, it should no longer be on your DBS. However, if it went to court you were convicted even if the sentence was an absolute discharge, in which case it will be there until 11 years after you were in court.

If it was just a caution it should have been spent immediately and yes remained for 6 years. Is the offence specified or non specified?

List here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dbs-list-of-offences-that-will-never-be-filtered-from-a-criminal-record-check

It did go to court, so I think this is where I’ve been misguided. Eleven years then Thanks for clarifying though @prh47bridge , at least I know and understand now!

@itshereagainif you were disqualified you had to go to court surely to be disqualified the first time around? Driving while disqualified and without insurance are different crimes. And a caution is very unlikely for DWD…

So you didn’t just get a caution, you went to court…

why were you originally banned, how long was your disqualification, why did you drive while disqualified and what outcome was the court hearing?

driving while disqualified is very serious

@ButterYellowFlowers i was summoned to court but didn’t go as wasn’t aware of it. I went to court the second time and was convicted so we’ve clarified that’s eleven years. So another four years to go then.

None of that’s relevant to what I’ve asked @dadtoateen I don’t really want to be rude here but it’s not any of your business and not relevant.

Agreed it isn’t any of my business.

And not relevant but trying to understand your reasoning.

hope you learnt your lesson for if you ever get your licence back 👍

From what others have said - Sounds like as went to court it will show for 11yrs

if it is just caution and no court then 6

Yes thanks @Blondeshavemorefun , I think we’ve established that now 🙄

If you went to court, it wasn’t a caution, unless the CPS agreed to refer it back to the police to reconsider for a caution - unusual but does very occasionally happen. Driving while disqualified wouldn’t generally be dealt with by way of a caution as it is essentially a breach of a court order. In order to get the right advice, you probably need to establish exactly what the outcome was. Are you mixing up a conditional discharge with a caution? A conditional discharge is a sentence that broadly says ‘go away and don’t get into trouble for the next 12 months and you won’t hear anymore about this.’ I can’t help on the current DBS rules - I stopped practising criminal law a few years ago. But you do need to clarify the exact process and outcome.

Guys, I’ve got it 👍🏻 I do appreciate @prh47bridge taking the time to clarify for me and others. Appreciated.

Bloody hell. Are you always so rude? No one is obliged to try and advise you, but people have. People don't always read every comment as soon as it updates and some people might miss something that's been said.

Sorry @InfiniteTeas i skim read and thought you were just repeating info and you were actually being helpful. Sorry. It stresses me out! (And my spelling gets terrible when I’m worked up!)

Honestly it is all fog like. The actual crime if you like was march 2019. I’m driving home, listening to 00s Emo stuff like I’m still 22, then I’m pulled over by a very polite policeman who says he thinks I may have been disqualified. I’m all ‘no, must be a mistake!’ Turns out it wasn’t a mistake. I had indeed been disqualified earlier that month. So had a six month ban which of course expired September 2019, thought that was the end of it but then ended up in court January 2020.

I really did think as it wasn’t a relevant offence or sexual or anything like that I’d be able to put it behind me 😩😩 and am very a bit upset I can’t which explains my tenseness

Enhanced show everything but we disregard if not relevant so your conviction would be of not concern for who I recruit for (I’m the safeguarding officer). The only role I’d think twice about is anything that involves driving

Not really seeking advice on that @hahabahbag but thanks.

It seems like you might have figured out the answer now but just in case, this is helpful and you can contact Unlock anonymously for factual advice https://unlock.org.uk/disclosure-calculator/

I’d just add, there are many jobs and voluntary roles that unlawfully ask for enhanced DBS checks, so it’s worth seeing if there’s a way to challenge if it’s something you want to do. Unlock and other organisations can advise and help on that too.

Thanks @Allisnotlost1 . I work in education so enhanced is a given. Just does obviously make moving on difficult. But I do really appreciate that link.

Oh bless you OP. It all sounds like such a big deal over something relatively small. But yes if court it's 11 years, sorry.

Thanks (sad face is at me not you - I do really appreciate the help even if it’s not the answer I’d hoped for!)

I didn’t take offence - but I do think everyone is trying to help. Some of the questions people are asking are relevant to how you might need to approach an application where it might be flagged up. But you’re not going to get an accurate picture of your position until you find out exactly what happened. There used to be different rules around conditional discharges for the purposes of declaring convictions - they’re a commonly used but slightly odd sentence form - and I don’t know what the current position is. There was always a narrative around them that ‘they’re not really a conviction’ which was a bit simplistic but often repeated. If I had to take a guess from your description and the confusion around caution/conviction, I’d probably put my money on you having had a conditional discharge and that spiel. There may also be some stuff that’s worth unpicking around the circumstances of the disqualification and why you didn’t know. It might be that you’d benefit from putting together a summary of events and any evidence you can gather, so you have something you can give to a potential employer, rather than trying to explain on the hoof. If you can say ‘I was disqualified without my knowledge due to [insert specific circumstances] and the court accepted that I hadn’t had any intent to commit an offence, reflecting that in a [insert sentence]’ and back that up with evidence, you’ll probably feel much more in control of the narrative.

I am sure @InfiniteTeas but while there’s an element of wanting to help it isn’t helpful to just keep repeating ‘be honest.’ That’s not what I’m asking about. Sorry if that sounds a bit terse but when someone is posting three or four times effectively with ‘well I’ve no idea about the answer to your question but I’ll tell you what to do anyway!’ - it is annoying!

@itshereagain

please be assured that decent employees will appreciate your honesty in declaring your conviction and it should not affect your job offer. You would be surprised how many do have convictions on them, and not the people you would expect! I would not get many volunteers if I only accepted clean dbs, everyone deserves a second chance (well most, some convictions are a no obviously)

Ah ok, then difficult. But even the education sector is getting better informed about assessing criminal conviction info.

I understand it’s very hard for you to talk about, but practising talking it through with people who are non-judgemental might help you gain the confidence to apply for roles before the filtering period is up. You could try Working Chance as well as Unlock, WC are an employment charity who work with women with any kind of conviction, no matter how long ago. Good luck, it doesn’t define you.

@hahabahbag - I don’t want to get into that. I’m sorry if that sounds rude but I really don’t. I won’t be applying for new jobs while I have this conviction, it doesn’t matter why, I just won’t so I’m not seeking advice on that. I really, genuinely thought that it was over and am a bit very gutted it is not!

@InfiniteTeas i think I’ve provided a timeline - march 2019 was the offence and I went to court January 2020. So depending on whether 2019 or 2020 are taken as the date of the conviction I have four or five years to go

I had kind of assumed it was a caution since there was no custodial sentence, even suspended, and actually in court they were very nice to me and accepted it had been a genuine error rather than a deliberate attempt to defy the law so to speak but this is the problem; in explaining that you either look like someone who doesn’t give a shit about the law or someone who is chaotic and dysfunctional … which I am (or rather was!) but unsurprisingly don’t like advertising! And of course then Covid happened and I found life changed very dramatically and rapidly and I feel I am light years away from that chaotic person. But of course the law is the law and it is best to know.