Hi Mr W

So I have just been lucky to find places that didn't ask for disclosure. My PPU officer in fairness, didn't make a threat to disclose as they stated they would only consider this option if they believed I was at risk or if they considered there was a risk to myself in that role. Which to me is abit of a fair enough. All of the roles I held in fairness never interacted with the public

As many have said, it depends on the force and the officer entirely and it can be quite hit and miss who you get etc. 

 

Hi Dean91,
I have to say you've done incredibly well to get back into employment even before your suspended sentence has even run its course and additionally having a SHPO which means being "unspent" for a ridiculous length of time.

Often the ppu forces disclosure to the employer and things tend to go downhill for many but I take it you've found an employer who is "accepting", shall we say, of your story?

I do hope your new job can help with the battle of anxiety and depression too.

=====
Fighting or Accepting - its difficult to know which is right and when.

Hi Dean91

Perhaps you could say a bit more, about how you secured your IT jobs? Did you go through an employment agency, or approach employers directly? Which websites did you use to search for jobs?

Lots of people who download these images will have been employed in IT, and will be looking to get back into jobs in the IT sector. Clearly there are issues around disclosure that crop up. Did you have any instances, where the employer did ask about your convictions and did that lead to the job offer being withdrawn?

Thanks

Hi James, 

Firstly, welcome to the forum. This is a great place to vent, and gain other peoples perspectives on issues.

I am unusual, and fell in a trap so I have two sentecnes, and they are concurrent. I was originally sentence in 2020 for idecent images, and during a PPU visit, they pressurised me into giving consent to search my IT equipment, at the time, I didn't have a SHPO, due to my low numbers, my barrister argued in court the risks actually outweigh any benefits as well in my case. I was resentenced in 2021 for the same offence, as the PPU found more images on a laptop this time I had a 22month sentence suspended for 2 years, and a 10 year SHPO. Although my SHPO was quite debated in court, and the judge agreed to some of the conditions being vague(One of my conditions actualyl does say I cannot install CCCleaner and I don't have any conditions about supervision). 

I have now officially finished Horizon- -Final appointment is this week!!! , I am pretty much now starting to be at the end of my sentence and starting to do the final things with probation now, which to me is a relief. 

I have managed to secure IT jobs, and if I am honest, they never bothered to ask. One thing I would say though, is keep your PPU officer in the loop. One of the jobs I had, was purely office based, and the office was an open space so everyone could see my screen - this helped with my officer and gave them the reassurance they needed. 

My visits in fairness, have started to become less frequent. I have a good working relationship with my PPU officer, its the 2nd officer they come with I tend to have issues with as he can be over-zealous at times. 

I too have depression and anxiety, I have other medical conditions which I won't post. But one thing I would say is, Probation are there to support you, and they do have some great levels of support, just, if you feel your missing something in the appointments then raise this with them. Probation itself even since I started has gone through massive changes, mainly that the private part has been bought back to HMPPS.

You have to be able to manage your own risk, and build for the future. Look towards the future and focus on building a new me. It's easy to look back at what we did, but actually moving foward means, accepting what we did was wrong, the responsibillity for our actions(Not like the PM who continually breaks laws or misleads Parliament) and if I am honest, you will start to move on when things seem to move along in your sentence etc. 

Once your sentence is over, you have done your time, and rehabilitated  

First, welcome to the forums. I understand how difficult it can be posting for the first time and sharing your story. To answer your question relating to working in the tech industry, I too am currently looking for IT work. My last job was back in 2015 where I was later sentenced for the same offence in 2017. Finding work or even training courses has been difficult but not impossible. I have managed to apply and successfully complete a number of courses since I was sentenced up until recently where some places like colleges have rejected me when I am asked to disclose my conviction. I was even rejected from places that are advertised as offering help to those with convictions. I have some other online courses lined up to give me something to do until other courses I wanted to do are available, at this point I have not been asked to disclose any convictions so, it would be interesting to see reactions if and when I do disclose to them. It is online learning from home so I doubt they will ask. If you are looking at wanting to learn from home and do a course of your own there are plenty of skills boot camps being funded by the Gov.

I have also struggled with depression for what feels like most of my life which contributed to my offending but I use that as no excuse, I have spells where I am able to break free for a while until things just get to much again and I am back to square one. I can honestly say though the past 2 weeks for me have been some of the best weeks so far. Not feeling as anxious anymore and I feel more uplifted where I can finally keep myself in to a routine and start looking after my self better. I think what aided this change was something I read from the forums where someone had posted the things the PPU look at in determining the risk they believe I pose. I compared what the post said and really started to look at my self and one day I just told myself its time to stop being such an embarrassment and to make some changes. So I hope when my PPU comes to visit me again he can actually see the positive change in me. I have also started to exercise a lot more thanks to my more positive attitude, going for a walk really helps clear the mind although, I understand completely how challenging this can be thinking everyone is out to get you. This is something you just have to try and break past, regain your confidence and have plans in place on the off chance someone does approach you, like what to say, can you take an alternate route to avoid people as much as possible.

Much like yourself, I too also got quite addicted to pornography at quite a young age. I am quite saddened to see that although they only found 10 images they "thought" were illegal, you were still handed the full 10 years on the SHPO and SOR. Was a caution ever offered to you before being sent to court? How was your interaction with your solicitors and did they make sure your SHPO was smith compliant? Would you be willing to share the restrictions you got on your SHPO?
I will keep my comments short regarding our justice system because this is one area that quite honestly infuriates me, but what I will say is the system needs to change to allow people the chance to turn their lives around before being punished by public scrutiny. Police are only interested in figures that make them look better.

Stay strong, stay safe

Hi all. 

I would post this in new the forums come say HI bit but the post reply buttons are missing or I cant add a topic, so appologies this is in the wrong area.

I have been visiting the forum unregistered for about 2 years, reading all your storys and other bits to build my confidence of posting for the first time. So to begin with, James is not my real name but to protect me thats what I will use to post on this forum, I share that to be completely honest and open as much as I can without revealing my true identity of course. I was convicted of indecent images (downloading) and given a 15 month sentence suspended for 2 years and 150 hours community service and required to sign on sor for 10 years and given a SHPO for 10 years... the shpo was hotley debated in court in my case as they were not 100% sure if I needed one but in the end the judge ruled she had no choice with cases like this as duty of care to the public etc, that was almost 2 years ago now, the time with probation ends on July the 5th. leading up to the conviction I had numerous undiagnoised mental health problems and a drinkning issue and I was abusing drugs and self harming and I started to get addicted to online pornoragraphy, I apprentally amassed 650,0000 normal videos of legal porn and something like 10 illegal accroding the police officer who charged me but again please dont think I am excusing it because I am not, there is non, before the police knocked on the door i was planning to kill myself and i mean really planning, I bought plastic sheet and a rope and found a place where hopefully only a police officer would find me, but I was planning on calling 999 and telling them where i was and then doing the deed so in a way it was a good thing they knocked as it threw me into mental health services. I was eventually thrown into a court and advised by my barrister to plead guilty, and with my various issues I did and had to wait months to get sentatenced due to the pandemic and well eventually I got the sentance I have shared. just to pause here for a bit I dont want anyone to think I am using my mental health problems as an excuse i know I keep mentioning this but its important you understand I am not trying to excuse anything. 

probation for the most part are ok, I see them once a month and in the begining it did help but these last 2-3 months its not any help at all and it 2-3 minutes tops and thanks see you next month, I feel something is missing from probation, I just cant put my finger on it.. but I digress. unpaid work was a mess and they didnt communicate properly and acted like they were a small business, this was confirmed by my probabtion officer who said thats excatly how they operate but it would be changing as unpaid work would be coming back into probation, the problem i had wa sa mouthy young lad on site started in on me and then started talking to others and started asking questions about what my conviction was, I was mentally unwell still and well it was tempting to react I didnt, unpiad work people let the situation get of hand and eventually these 3 young lads was at one end of the site and I was on my own getting on with things and was appraoched by the surpervisor and I was asked to leave site as they are asking questions and putting things together... anyhow that happened and they refused to put me in a charity shop folding clothes as I was "unsuitable" even though my probabtion officer argused against this..... so yeah unpaid work was eventually completed at home due to the pandemic so was a massive mess and glad I got it done. 

I am still struggling sometimes mentally, I have been in and out of mental health programs and today I have anxiety, depression, diabetties, high blood preasure and extreme fear of being around groups of people as I think i am going to be attacked, I am attending a centre soon which I think will help but just honestly guys I do struggle, yesterday was especially bad as I watched a youtube thing where this guy was being celebrated and applauded for beating a suposed rapist to death in the street with a baseball bat and he said he would do the same to all sex offenders, which obvously triggered my fear but thats were I am, again just want to be honest as its been a long journey to get mentally right again and I do want you all to know I was out of my mind and lost it, as I would finish my rubbish job and just aimsley wander around till 9pm in the evening and then go home and self harm and drink and do drugs and sometimes not all the time surf for porn, should point out it took the police 2 years to bring it to court and I was released on investigation during those 2 years and in that time I started to deal with my mental health which turns out helped in court. 

sorry for the long intro but now I want anyone who has been through this what did you do for work? I would be really intersted to hear from those who entire career was tech based or in IT, what job did you take and how? IT agencys refuse to consider anyone with crimanal record so have no clue how to continue in that feild even though my PPU says they have loads of people who have!!!! I am lost and confused as to how they did this. I am just starting on when to disclose work and that seems straight forward, just curious how and what type of jobs you got, as I am stuck as my entire working history is in tech, also note i have no restrictions on the type of work I can take and what i mean by that I can use anything tech based if its work related. 

Housing, I got turned down flat as I was recently found guilty of a crime and asked to reapply in 2 years, how did you all manage to get on housing registers? 

thats everything and all the best to everyone and keep moving forward as thats all we can do I guess.