Dealing with criminal record information

Businesses may draw some comfort from a recent European Court of Human Rights decision concerning criminal record information. In this case, a woman had been cautioned for child abduction after she disappeared with her grandson for two days during a family crisis. She was rejected for jobs over six years later when the caution was disclosed in criminal record checks.

In its decision, the court did not criticise employers’ reactions to adverse criminal record checks. The court acknowledged that these type of disclosures were likely to represent a “killer blow” to the hopes of a job applicant as most employers would prefer employees to have clean records.

This checklist sets out the issues a business should consider when dealing with information about a criminal record.