CRB check - does this sound ridiculous or am I being pathetic?

[saadia]

I am due to start a PGCE this September and went in today to submit the CRB form, which was all fine. Bloke then asked if I had ever lived abroad for three months or more and I told him I had when I was doing my language degree 20yrs ago. So now I need to get s document from that country (Egypt) saying that I did not commit any crime there.

Have e-mailed British Consulate there asking for advice but it just all seems a bit improbable that such a document could be obtained - how will they check?

police checks are usually required for any country you have lived in. tis quite normal.
contact the egyptian embassy in london who will be able to advise you how to get one from outside the country. noramlly there is a very straightforward form to complete and fee to pay.
(if you were in egypt you would have to go to a local police station and ask for a 'legal status cerificate' - the equivalent of a police check in most other countries.)

whether they will be able to check or not is a bit irrelevant really tbh. you have been asked to prove you don't have a police record - so best crack on with it.

re likelihood of 'such a document being obtained' - you need them for all sorts of things and each country has their own version. it would be extremely unlikely for a country not to be able to provide such a document, although some regimes (much more troubled than egypt lol) do struggle with the admin and there can be quite a wait involved.

thanks madwoman I was just wondering how they would manage the bureaucracy but if this is something they are familiar with and have an actual procedure then seems more doable. I remember going to a police station to register when we arrived and TBH it all seemed very haphazard.

Also I could not, after 20yrs, provide the address where I lived, or the exact dates I was there.

I lived in Egypt for 5 years (and elsewhere) and was never asked for these documents for my CRB check! Haphazard is really a very tactful description I think I don't envy you! Hopefully they will issue some kind of acceptable (but totally meaningless) document within some sort of acceptable timeframe. They must surely have had these requests before.

The last time I registered at a police station in Cairo they had one of the prisoners, in handcuffs, translate for them. He seemed very charming...........

lol yes I was trying to be diplonatic - the police actually had great fun comparing our passport photos to our actual faces and laughing hysterically at my friend who was speaking in Classical Arabic.

Well I have e-mailed the Consulate here as well but I'm not that hopeful. Not sure what will happen if they don't reply - best I can do is show college that I have attempted it

lol - don't try and emigrate to canada if you can't remember addresses - even if you're 110 they want to know everywhere you have lived since 18th birthday... tis a rigmarole for sure.

Thanks for the warning, dh was born in Canada so it was on our list of countries we might want to one day live in but that kind of rule would definitely put me off.

slightly easier for spousal sponsorship, but you'd still need to fill the life history in and get all the police checks done lol - better make a note of the right place to send the egypt application just in case...

Yes, well I contacted the Embassy and they do actually provide this service - for only £14, much less than I was anticipating. But I may need to get a certified translation I guess. So I will be off to Knightsbridge tomorrow.

Such a palaver, and obviously all checks need to be in place where children are involved. But I do suspect that a real criminal with a foreign record would have no trouble forging one of these.