Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974

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The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 of the UK Parliament enables some criminal convictions to be ignored after a rehabilitation period. Its purpose is that people do not have a lifelong blot on their records because of a minor indiscretion in youth. The rehabilitation period is automatically determined by the sentence, and starts from the date of the conviction. After this period free of further convictions, the conviction is "spent", and with certain exceptions an ex-offender is not obliged to mention a spent conviction in any context, including when applying for a job, or obtaining insurance, or in criminal or civil proceedings.

The rehabilitation period is 5 years for most non-custodial sentences, and for a young offender (under 18) the rehabilitation period is five years even for prison sentences. Otherwise the length of the rehabilitation period depends on the sentence passed, up to ten years for a prison sentence of six months to two and a half years. However, prison sentences of more than two and a half years can never be spent.

Certain professions are exempt from the Act so that indivuals are not allowed to withhold details of previous convictions in relation to their job when applying for positions in similar fields. These professions include :

Those working with children and other vulnerable groups, such as teachers and social workers
Those working in professions associated with the justice system, such as solicitor, police, court clerk, probation officer, prison officer and traffic warden
Doctors, dentists, chemists or nurses
Accountants

[edit] Rehabilitation Act and actions for libel under British law

According to Law and the Media, a reference work relating to British media law, if a person can prove that the details of a spent conviction were published with malice, then the publisher may be subject to libel damages regardless of whether the details were true or not.

As a result, although British media remain free to publish the details of spent convictions, provided they are not motivated by malice, they generally avoid mention of such convictions after rehabilitation.^[1]