Hi Leigh,

A perennial problem for many people with convictions is the 'google' factor.

If you were sentenced to less than 6 months in prison, or received some sort of probation or community order, it is possible that you conviction is now 'spent' under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.
You can find out if your conviction is spent here: www.disclosurecalculator.org.uk

If your conviction is, indeed, spent then you could try contacting the newspaper and asking them to remove reference to it from their online archive as it has now been 'wiped out by law' - whilst this isn't technically accurate, for the purposes of 'reporting' it should have the desired effect. If they don't remove it, you could contact them again and state that you will consider continued publication of the conviction as 'malicious' and commence legal proceedings against the newspaper. Basically, newspapers tend to avoid reporting 'spent' convictions but this is only illegal if malice can be proven (very difficult in practice), but they probably won't want the hassle - particularly if they don't have a lot of money and can't afford the legal fees!

If your conviction isn't yet spent you may simply have to wait - or change your name? Or just not worry about it and accept that most people won't be 'googling' your particulars any time soon (behave!)

As for getting a correction - again it does require a costs/benefit analysis on your part. Newspapers almost NEVER get court reports correct! Is the offence which they claimed you were convicted of more serious than the assault? If so the report could be considered defamatory (i.e. you were convicted of assault but they claim you were convicted of attempted murder is defamatory because it makes out that you committed a much more serious offence). If it is something minor then I probably wouldn't bother - it's a lot of work for little reward.

P.S. I've deleted the other posting of this message to ensure that responses all occur in the same place. This is the best thread for such a question.

Post Edited (AndyH) : 28/11/2011 19:38:06 GMT

Hmmm, honest answer is... I don't know.

Obviously the ROA 1974 was written and enacted pre- t'interwebz so it doesn't deal with online publication (actually it doesn't deal with press publication very well either but that's a different ball-game). I suspect that if you ask them to remove it on the basis that the conviction is now legally 'spent' they will do so (particularly if you say that you will assume any continued online publication of the conviction would be due to malice on the part of the newspaper). Malicious publication (VERY difficult to prove) is your only legal recourse, to my knowledge.

Anyone else got any bright ideas?

Post Edited By Moderator (Christopher Stacey) : 10/01/2012 09:34:32 GMT

Hi Leigh,
Thanks for your message to the Administrator - as you will see below, Chris has been on and edited my post appropriately.
Best wishes,
Andy

CJM,

You might find the guidance we have on our Information Hub helpful for you and your solicitor. As always, how this works in practice is what is important. So, do let us know how you get on.

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