Good afternoon,

I recently applied to the ICO to have several links removed from google search results due to the negative impact they are having on my life. To cut a long story short I was a public servant when I was arrested for a criminal offence however after conducting their investigation and providing a full account of myself it was deemed that their was no criminal intent on my behalf and charging standards weren't met in any shape or form. However I was then taken to a misconduct hearing whereby my actions were found to be of gross misconducted due to the nature of the incident and the impact it would have on public trust in the public sector I worked in. As I say I held my hands up, accepted it was a stupid mistake and helped as much as I could throughout the process.

At the time I had no idea the storm I was about to walk into however in hindsight I should of expected it. Due to being a public servant the misconduct hearing was held with the press able to attend. As with most misconduct hearings the facts were presented in a way that was lets say tilted to one side and key elements were left out i.e the reasons for no criminal case, my defence and lack of criminal intent etc and as a result gross misconduct found and I would of been sacked on the spot If I hadn't already resigned my position.

Now 1 person from the media attended and put a very basic release on their webpage however over the following days other media outlets put out news releases which got further from the truth and more towards headline grabbing, clickbaiting and generally nasty comments, keeping in mind no criminal case was being pursued as no criminal offence had been committed yet I was being written about in a manor that a serial offender might find himself being written about. 

So after suffering from ill health due to this for a number of years I finally decided enough was enough and I had to do something about this as I can't secure employment and in all intense and purposes I've been bankrupted due to this. So I applied to the ICO to have the links removed and provided my evidence and used several stated cases in my application, After a wait I received notification that the case was now being looked into and I would hear back within a few weeks. I received a reply the other day asking to provide evidence that the links are still visible on google and haven't been de-listed as they could only find 1 on the first 6 pages of the google search.

This got me slightly confused as in my research and everything I've read on the subject at no point does it mention the search results have to be on "x" amount of pages. Has anyone got any better knowledge of this or have had any dealings with this issue and if so what was the outcome. Any help / knowledge would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks