Phoning Ones Boss

[malagabob]

Just a issue someone I know is going through.
I know if asked by a potential new employer, that you should disclose any criminal convictions. If Asked is the main point here. Some employers don’t ask. If subsequently, 1 -2 years down the line a person who has a vendetta, phones the employer and tells the employer , the employee has a criminal conviction. Gets the employee the sack. Can the person with the vendetta be charged with any offence. TIA.

[murraymints]

probably not..no crime has been committed !

[CrapAtCryptics]

You should always tell a new employer if you have a record. If you dont there is always the chance it will be discovered and they will believe you attempted to mislead them

[Hymie]

When your prospective employer asks why you left your last employment – probably not best to say ‘Because they threatened to call the police.’

[10ClarionSt]

I knew someone who had a criminal conviction and would declare it on any job application. As you would think, no jobs were ever offered. When he explained this to the person at the benefits office, she said he should not declare it. That's the govt office for you! Anything to get you out of their hair.

[Arrods]

Is the conviction spent? If so, the employer an/or the vendetta person could be in trouble?

[bednobs]

I don't see how. Convictions are in the public domain. How can it be an offence to say something that's objectively true? Employers can sack anyone in the first two years of employment with no comeback

[Maydup]

Unlikely, to be any offence you could charge them with, but the employer would need some very good reasoning to use that against an employee they have taken on without asking themselves. It is worth citizens advice for another time but not much to gain in this case.

[bednobs]

Ps you original position is wrong anyway. Only certain professions are exempt from the rehabilitation of offenders act. If the job was niot one if them you don't have to declare spent convictions

[Peter Pedant]

Deffo no
It is not criminal to tell an employer a true fact
( if untrue then different but that is not the question here)

within the time frame 1-2 y

[pixie374]

Tell him, always to disclose it, asked or not. It doesn't mean he won't get the job, necessarily, but hiding it, is something I have seen people sacked for.

[Arrods]

We still don’t know if the conviction was spent. If it was, and it wasn’t one covered by the exemption, the employer and/or the vendetta person could be in trouble.

[bednobs]

with whom and why?

[bednobs]

there's no laws against being a dick

[New Judge]

//I know if asked by a potential new employer, that you should disclose any criminal convictions.//

//You should always tell a new employer if you have a record.//

Not necessarily you shouldn’t. The Rehabilitation of Offenders’ Act (ROA) provides for those convicted of most criminal offences to see their convictions “spent” after a certain period of time, that period being dependent upon the sentence imposed. The only convictions not subject to this Act are those where a sentence of more than four years in custody was imposed and a limited number of indeterminate sentences which may be shorter than that. As well as that, some occupations are exempt from the Act (in very broad terms, those involving appointments in the judiciary, the legal profession, the police, certain finance roles or where children or vulnerable adults are involved). Anybody applying for a job where the ROA provides protection is entitled to answer “No” if they are asked whether they have any convictions provided all those they have are spent.

//Convictions are in the public domain.//

Are they? What do you mean by “in the public domain”?

[Peter Pedant]

thx NJ

public domain - it was in the local papers once - and so can be accessed if you go down to the right local library
( you asked what convictions are in the public domain....)

[New Judge]

//...public domain - it was in the local papers once//

I was thinking along those lines, Peter. But so few minor convictions are reported these days. Long gone are the days when a local hack would be in every Magistrates' Court every day. So whilst it's true to say that details of the few that are reported can be obtained (if you know where to look) I think saying that "convictions are in the public domain" is a bit of a stretch.

[Peter Pedant]

erm my DD was reported
and no less tha SIX cut out reports landed on the MDs desk on the Monday

it was greater than a duty it had become a pleasure ...... the divine oscar

[THECORBYLOON]

The fact that a conviction was in the public domain does not mean that a spent conviction is no longer private.

'Spent convictions in the law of privacy

It is now clear that, for the purposes of the tort of misuse of private information, spent convictions are private information within the meaning of article 8 of the Convention. Although criminal convictions occur in open court and may be reported on contemporaneously, as Lord Hope explained in R (L) v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis [2009] UKSC 3 at [27]:

“as [the conviction] recedes into the past, it becomes a part of the person’s private life.”

The Strasbourg Court endorsed this position in MM v United Kingdom [2012] ECHR 1906 [188]. In the subsequent case of Re (T) v Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police [2015] AC 49 the Supreme Court accepted that the point at which this occurs will

“usually be the point at which it becomes spent under the 1974 Act” [18].

In other words, the 1974 Act functions to “generate” a reasonable expectation of privacy into information relating to convictions which was not previously private.

The starting point is therefore that someone who published a spent conviction could not defeat a privacy claim by arguing that a claimant had no reasonable expectation of privacy because s/he was convicted in open court.

Publishers may seek to rely on information about the offence and conviction having been reported contemporaneously; reports may remain available online long after a conviction is spent for the purposes of the 1974 Act. However, such arguments run up against the Supreme Court’s reasoning on the 1974 Act operating to make spent convictions private. Additionally, as the Supreme Court reaffirmed in PJS v NGN [2016] UKSC 26, the fact that information is in the public domain will not, of itself, defeat a privacy claim. Where the further publication of the information will give rise to (further) intrusion into the claimant’s privacy then this further publication may be unlawful.  The publication of information concerning a spent conviction may well give rise to further intrusion into private life.'

[New Judge]

A very good summary. Thanks, Corby.