I have no Google effect, no media attention all, no SHPO, conviction spent October, SOR for 4 more years.  Sounds good, right? Except my barrister decided it would be a great idea if I sent a letter detailing my offence. I was obviously sacked, and that will undermine all of the positives above.  My advice - do not get sacked. All applications forms have this question so you're never free of the conviction. It's a absolute nightmare for life. Resign.

I'd say don't request that policy. If you get to the point where they want to dismiss you for gross misconduct, that's the time to request the policy.

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If you are to punish a man retributively you must injure him. If you are to reform him you must improve him. And men are not improved by injuries. (George Bernard Shaw)

Me too. But it could be that they have no contractual grounds to suspend me due to there being nothing about criminal convictions in my contract. Plus they're probably hoping to get my work devices back before potentially suspending/firing me.

I'm surprised your employer hasn't suspended you if they're aware of a criminal charge.

I'm currently in the limbo period, awaiting results of the digital forensics analysis. I'm off work for mental health reasons. My contract doesn't say anything specific about informing my employer of any convictions, but it does refer to a separate gross misconduct policy that I don't have access to. I'd like to read it but I'm worried it would set off alarm bells if I asked HR for it. Any suggestions on whether I should request it or not?

Separately, how would the sheriff (judge) be likely to view me resigning in order to maintain a reference, as opposed to keeping my employment, therefore being viewed as a more stable individual, but with the risk of being fired and losing future prospects due to losing the reference?

As a side note, I know for a fact that some/most of my direct team members know about my case, and therefore the whole company likely knows, but HR are telling me that they don't know what the charge against me is, only that my work devices are being investigated (I work in IT). I suspect they're keeping me employed currently to ensure that the work devices are returned to them, then they may get rid of me.

Do they even check?

I remember them telling me I had to tell my employer. I had no idea why, I worked in an industry that meant it was impossible to interact with people under 18.

When they insisted I said I would. When I saw them again they asked if I did and I said yes. I assume they never checked because my employers never found out.

I'm incredibly fortunate that I was able to do that. My background is mainly IT and computer-based stuff so I retrained a bit over COVID and lockdowns and upskilled into RPA which is what I'm doing now. 

I would love to find a work from home thing, that would be amazing. I thought things were going to be easier once I was in the clear. But i'm just applying for warehouse etc and not getting any reponse. 

Some friendly and sensible advice about this.  Don't inform your employer, and if you really have to then RESIGN before any disciplinary process.  I am a perfect case study in how not do it.  Not only did I inform my employer halfway through the case (so they put a senior manager in court), but I stupidly decided to go through the disciplinary just to get a few months more pay. Disaster. Every employer will ask have you ever been subject to a disciplinary, so even if your conviction is spent this question will ultimately mean you have to disclose. A clucking lifetime nightmare.

With the power of hindsight I could've probably handled mine a little bit better, the overall outcome would've still been the same so I don't know.

I didn't tell anyone except for one close friend. My hope was I could get through the whole thing without many people knowing and move on. For reference, I was convicted on an images offence.

One of my later court dates was reported on in a local newspaper and that was that. That obviously spread like wildfire. I got an email from work saying not to come in and I was suspended pending their investigation. About a month later I had a HR phone call thing to tell my side of the story and they'd go away and come back with their decision. Unsurprisingly they came back and sacked me for gross misconduct, it took them all of about 5 minutes to come to their decision (I just assumed they had already made it before the initial phone call and this was all just a formality box-ticking exercise).

As fate would have it, everyone got laid off about 6 months later so in the grand scheme of things I was going to lose my job anyway. 

I've since managed to find alternative employment, it's not quite as much as I was earning before but I'll be honest I'm happier now as I work from home too so that's a plus.

Hi All
In my first post here I mentioned that I had informed my employer of my conviction.  Specifically, I informed them between hearing and sentencing with the consequences that my employer put a senior manager in the court for sentencing, and subsequently dismissal for gross misconduct for a) conduct outside office, b) my presence on the SOR, and c) waiting until after hearing to inform them.  At the time I was employed by a big-name financial services organisation in the City of London l, and my conduct policy stated I should inform them promptly upon criminal investigations being initiated against me. My offence was of a sexual nature and I'm currently serving a community order.  To clarify I was signed off sick between my police interview all the way through to sentencing and then the dismissal process at work.

Has anyone else informed their employer whilst employed?  Was this because of their work contract or for other reasons?

What experiences did people have? Did people retain their employment?

Did anyone ignore their contractual obligation?

Was anyone dismissed for gross misconduct as a result of informing them? How has that effected your efforts to find alternative employment?

I bitterly regret telling my employer. As my offence didn't involve children and I didn't work with children, both the PPU and police have stated no disclosure would have been necessary.  My concerns for the future are that my SOR status is now known to my former colleagues and, I suspect, former colleagues. Nothing has been gained from informing them (my case was subject to reporting restrictions), so I wish either that I had returned to work and claimed I'd had a breakdown, for example, or resigning to retain a reference and ensuring only those in the court had ever found out.

I would be interested to hear others' stories. I feel as though I have made my life much more difficult than had been necessary by informing them.