Spent Convictions in UK Law

As to the spent convictions issue, the starting point, in my judgment, should be the purpose of the 1974 Act and the language of section 7(3). The Act was intended to allow persons convicted of the less serious offences to become, after a suitable period of time, rehabilitated. It was intended to allow the stain of the conviction to be wiped from the record. The language of section 7(3) is entirely consistent with that purpose.

But the approach established in criminal cases is not, in my judgment, an appropriate approach in civil cases.

In our view, when this question arises, it is entirely a question for the discretion of the judge. It may well be that the past spent conviction, as was instanced in argument, happened when the defendant being tried was a juvenile, for instance for stealing apples, a conviction of many years before. The essence of this matter is that the jury must not be misled and no lie must be told to them about this matter.

It would also have to render private convictions that were matters of public record and may well have been, as in this case, reported in the press. Notwithstanding the obvious practical difficulty of rendering secret a public judgment which had been freely and properly reported in the press, the Act does not purport to have that effect and does not, in my opinion, do so.

That is so, as the court explained in MM, because of the cumulative effect of the failure to draw any distinction on the basis of the nature of the offence, the disposal in the case, the time which has elapsed since the offence took place or the relevance of the data to the employment sought, and the absence of any mechanism for independent review of a decision to disclose data under section 113A.

Section 4 (1) (a) also refers to the prohibition relating to a person who has 'committed or been charged with or prosecuted for or convicted of or sentenced for any offence…'. It is necessary in section 4 (1) (b) to refer to 'any circumstances ancillary thereto' because the drafting of the section only uses the word 'conviction' and this makes it clear that the prohibition is wider than just the conviction itself.

As to the first issue, I am firmly of the view that article 8 is engaged in this case.