Job Interview: Drink Driving offence on DBS

BlueTooth

Hi all,

My first post here and just hoping for some advice or guidance; I've been trawling the web looking for clarification on my issue but to no avail.

The long and short of it is that 21 years ago I got charged (18 month ban) with drink driving (I was 1mg over the limit due to drinking the night before). When I arrived at the police station I accidentally/heavy handily broke the pipe on the breathlyser and they also charged me with failing to provide a specimen, which was Gods honest truth not the case. The whole incident has been the biggest regret of my life.

Moving forward, I still worry when applying for jobs (I work in IT) in case the company ask for a criminal record check and this shows up. In my last role, I had a Disclosure Scotland (Basic Disclosure) where it came back clean as it was a spent conviction which after reading up on is correct.

The job I had prior to the one above in 2016 however is where my worry/problem is. The company paid for a Disclosure & Barring Service (Standard Certificate) and it showed both charges that I was arrested for. Because of this I felt I had no choice but to resign with immediate effect before even handing it to them. From my understanding, after 11 years from the time of the offence this should now be classed as spent and as a filtered conviction which wouldn't show upon as Standard DBS - is that correct? If that is the case, this shouldn't have shown up 6 years later in 2016 - unless I'm completely wrong.

I'm extremely worried as I've got another interview tomorrow for a contract role and petrified this might come back to haunt me once again.

Can anyone please advise or at least point me in the right direction as to where I stand with this.

Many thanks in advance.

JGB1955

According to https://dbscheckonline.org.uk/faqs



Basic DBS check: Contains details of any unspent convictions or conditional cautions the applicant has.
Standard DBS check: Contains details of any spent or unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands or warnings the applicant has, as long as they’re not protected.
Enhanced DBS check: Contains the same information as a standard check, as well as any relevant information held by the applicant’s local police force.

So, a standard DBS check WILL show up unspent convictions AS LONG AS THEY'RE NOT PROTECTED.


Looking at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dbs-filtering-guidance/dbs-filtering-guide it seems that it may depend on your sentence and/or how many convictions you received. Any custodial sentence will be disclosed.

Mercdriver

JGB1955 wrote: »

According to https://dbscheckonline.org.uk/faqs



Basic DBS check: Contains details of any unspent convictions or conditional cautions the applicant has.
Standard DBS check: Contains details of any spent or unspent convictions, cautions, reprimands or warnings the applicant has, as long as they’re not protected.
Enhanced DBS check: Contains the same information as a standard check, as well as any relevant information held by the applicant’s local police force.

So, a standard DBS check WILL show up unspent convictions AS LONG AS THEY'RE NOT PROTECTED.


Looking at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/dbs-filtering-guidance/dbs-filtering-guide it seems that it may depend on your sentence and/or how many convictions you received. Any custodial sentence will be disclosed.

But the OP's conviction is spent.

BlueTooth

Thanks for the reply JGB1955, appreciate it.

This is where I am confused, as I had also looked at the last link you provided and where it states:

Protected convictions

A conviction is protected under English and Welsh law if:

• it is not for a ‘listed offence’ (see below) and
• you did not receive a custodial sentence and
• you have not been convicted of any other offence at any time and
• more than 11 years have passed since the date of conviction (or more than five years and six months have passed if you were under the age of 18 when convicted).

To answer each point:

• It isn't for a 'listed offence' (I've searched through the whole DBS spreadsheet of listed offences and it's not on there)
• I can confirm I never received a custodial sentence, it was an 18 month ban
• I've never been convicted of any other offence at any time
• More than 11 years have passed ( it was in 1999)

JGB1955

I would be inclined to phone the DBS up and ask them...


DBS helpline
03000 200 190

foxy-stoat

Some occupations convictions like this are never spent, unless the rules have changed in the last 10 years. What was the job you were going for?

BlueTooth

JGB1955 wrote: »

I would be inclined to phone the DBS up and ask them...


DBS helpline
03000 200 190

Yeah, I think you're right.

foxy-stoat

BlueTooth wrote: »

I'm just wondering what occupations convictions are never spent?

Doctors, dentists, midwives and nurses, Solicitors, Accountants, School based jobs, Jobs with social services providers, Jobs that involve the supervision or training of people under the age of 18 like taxi drivers.

Sounds like your job seems ok though.

BlueTooth

foxy-stoat wrote: »

Some occupations convictions like this are never spent, unless the rules have changed in the last 10 years. What was the job you were going for?

Thanks for the reply foxy-stoat.

Well the job I went for back when they required the DBS check was 2nd/3rd Line IT Engineer for a Managed Service Provider.

I'm just wondering what occupations convictions are never spent?

BlueTooth

foxy-stoat wrote: »

Doctors, dentists, midwives and nurses, Solicitors, Accountants, School based jobs, Jobs with social services providers, Jobs that involve the supervision or training of people under the age of 18 like taxi drivers.

Sounds like your job seems ok though.

Hmmm, well you know what, now you mention School based jobs (which makes sense) I always thought the manager had been a bit cheeky because he put that it was "School IT Support - Child Workforce" under the "Position applied for" on the DBS certificate which was never the case. They only dealt with Financial & Media companies, which I wouldn't have thought would have had the need to still disclose my spent conviction.

rdr

BlueTooth wrote: »

Hmmm, well you know what, now you mention School based jobs (which makes sense) I always thought the manager had been a bit cheeky because he put that it was "School IT Support - Child Workforce" under the "Position applied for" on the DBS certificate which was never the case. They only dealt with Financial & Media companies, which I wouldn't have thought would have had the need to still disclose my spent conviction.

These days it is argueable that that is a data protection breach because they are obtaining personal information they are not entitled to.