What's the actual uk law on past offences?

[PatatiPatatras]

Who can talk about them ? And when can they be talked about? Press? do neighbours have rights to know? When is it public interest and does that change anything?

And what's the MN guideline on talking about past offences.
Or do we have special people who simply count the number of times their offences are mentioned and refer to anything high frequency as personal attacks?

There are threads which need to stay standing and it might be easier to discuss rules first before kicking off new ones.

The publication of ‘spent’ convictions by the media can breach the provisions of the 1974 Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA). Under the ROA, your conviction becomes spent at the end of a specified ‘rehabilitation period’ (so long as you have not been given any further convictions during this time).

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.
It is not a criminal offence to report a spent conviction, so the ROA does not impose a criminal penalty on journalists or media organisations who do so. As a result of the ROA, technically, anybody reading about the spent conviction shouldn’t use that information in a way that disadvantages you in any way. Of course, this is difficult to prove, and even if you could prove it, there is little you can do.

https://unlock.org.uk/advice/reporting-criminal-records-media/

looks like just enough for some sort of lawsuit/injunction for some people, should they be that way inclined.

For DBS purposes some convictions are never spent, including sexual offences against minors. Why doesn't that apply to reporting? I guess it's to do with public protection.
Thing is, whatever certain people might threaten certain websites with in terms of legal action, we know 😆 certain people's credibility is shot forever. Tick tock!

I believe it is lawful to wear a bobble hat, but should said pictures of bobble hat wearing cause trauma to other, you could be sued for damages.

But further down that page it also says that:

"In practice, newspapers tend to take a pragmatic approach about the likelihood of libel litigation set against the copies sold. Most news journalism can argue that it is serving some kind of public interest by making revelations about past convictions, including ‘spent’ convictions, and that there is no malice. This means that the media can publish the details of, and comments, on ‘spent’ convictions without fear of libel law suits and the consequences in terms of paying damages if the case was lost."

And

"Once a conviction is online, and so in the public domain, the media can quote it in their outlets since they are not ‘revealing’ anything new, just stating a known fact. Nobody’s data is being invaded if past news sources are quoted and privacy rights are not being compromised. This seems to be true even in the case of ‘spent’ convictions."

What can I do if the media reports my spent conviction?If details of your spent record are reported in the media, you could try contacting the organisation/publication and ask them to remove reference to it as it has now been ‘wiped out by law’ – whilst this term isn’t technically accurate, for the purposes of ‘reporting’, it should have the desired effect.

If your conviction is recorded online, you will need to ask the organisation on whose website it appears both to remove it and to advise Google that any cached references need to be removed.

Suing a media organisation for defamation

If your request for the removal of a record of a spent conviction is not followed, you could inform the organisation that you consider the continued publication of the conviction as ‘malicious’ and commence legal proceedings against them. You are entitled to make a claim for defamation against a media organisation that reports your spent conviction. If proven, you would win the libel case and be paid damages for the effect that the reference to this conviction has had on your reputation. Sometimes, the threat alone is enough for them to act.

If you were to make such a claim, the organisation would, however, have various defences open to it, including:

• The defence of justification. This allows the media to report things that can be shown to be true without fear of legal action. However, this defence fails if you can show that your conviction is spent and that the arguments about malicious intentions apply since this would mean that there was no public interest in referring to the conviction.
• The defence of fair comment. This allows opinions about public figures relating to a conviction they have (even if it spent) to be published, if they are honestly held opinions and can be shown to be in the public interest. This defence works on the assumption that the actions of those in public positions (e.g. politicians) are open to public scrutiny.
• The defence of privilege argues that the public interest in freedom of speech outweighs the rights of the individual making the claim for defamation. Qualified privilege can be used by the media to enable them to make fair and accurate reports of a conviction, or to quote words from a case.

However, any of these defences can be rebutted if it is proven that there was no public interest in reporting this material or that the statement was reported with malice. Malice is defined in law as ‘published with an irrelevant, spiteful or improper motive’ (Herbage v Pressdram 1984). The burden of proving malice in such a case would rest on you, and is very difficult to do so in practice.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong as it's early and I'm not totally awake, but reading the above from @Silverdogblue link it seems that it can be reported if there is provable public interest (a few million views of an article would surely class as public interest?) And it's not done out of spite or malice.

Luckily it's on the person who thinks they have been defamed to prove malice was the reason for publication.

Rehabilitation of Offenders Act is about employers.

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”.

There was an Eastenders actor, Leslie Grantham, Dirty Den, who had his past outed; turned out he’d stabbed a taxi driver in Germany 20 years before he was famous, which was outed.

What I don’t understand is how a person could, hypothetically, take ownership of some offences, like for example, an assault with a golf club, and even make jokes about them, like playing golf at people’s homes, or explain away 6 months in prison reported in the national newspapers, as passing a bad cheque but then claim they are entitled to privacy over other offences.

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?

Public interest not internet.

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

Quite funny though 🤣

Does MN have opening and closing times?

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

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

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.

Cat. Bag.

“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.

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.

@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.

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?

@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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

😀

Even if it’s just a picture of a hat?

Heaven help. I'm lost 😕

OK.

The conviction isn't quashed. It is spent.

So employers cannot force you to declare said conviction. OK. I get this bit.

Press: the press can prove that they are releasing spent conviction information which is either in the public domain or on the publics interest but it must not have intent of malice.

So what is described as malice here?

Then there's Ms. Karen Public - under what circumstances can everyday people discuss a spent conviction. I honestly can't decipher the parameters.

And I here a lot about harassment. How does harassment play into the public discussing a spent conviction?

And what are the parameters around SM? Are they treated like journalism or ms. Karen Public?