" ICO have also been completely useless and in the first instance actually caused more issues by accidentally giving my contact details to a vigilante group. But I digress..."

That sounds pretty bad actually...what kind of people are these?

Yeah, ICO are supposed to be in charge of data and all this stuff. 

What had happened was early in my conviction when I was trying to get links removed, Google refused to remove them at the time. I went to ICO and they advised they had passed my email and details over the webmaster of one of the sites as a request to remove the details so like "John Doe (johndoe@gmail.com) has requested you remove the following link(s) from your website for reasons blah blah blah".

Suffice to say they didn't take down the link from their website and instead hit up their Facebook groups to plaster me even more in a bid to, and I quote, "Make me famous".

Mine is in the same lane as this but 18 months custodial and happened via voyeurism, 2016 conviction but 2007 incident.
Have you seen any succesful removal anecdotes of this nature?

Hey there! 

I'm afraid I haven't - That's not say it isn't possible, it's just I haven't seen it! 

What I will advise though is if your sentence is spent then Google tend to be fine with removing stuff, it's when you're still 'active' they get a bit funky with it. The avenue I went down with Google was really pushing the 'Rehabilitation of Offenders Act' angle and how the articles were preventing me from moving on and becoming a productive member of society again.

So yeah I'll say I'm 40 with a career now, my conviction is spent, and what you're reading about is some webcam malarkey from 2007 (college days), that really should be behind me.

The crazy thing is, I had already "outgrown" my conviction when it was handed to me in 2016.
I returned from my career in California to my mother's house in Scotland for xmas 2016.
Was there 3 days, when the police came crashing in, in search of jpegs. And I was like "fine whatever", thinking maybe my brother had been bandying around pics of his 16yo GF, and that's what they were after.
But in the house were a bunch of my old hard drives etc with heaps of deleted files on them from 9-10 years ago.
And I assumed they had been discarded anyway. 

Apparently the stuff they unearthed was not the stuff that tipped them off. They had simply been tipped off by a dirty meme I had posted to 4Chan in 2014, involving the girl in Jurassic Park getting her tits out to divert the attention of a T-rex. The image component that made the meme possible was an illegal one. 

So instead of returning to California, I spent the rest of the xmas period being poked and prodded in a Scottish police cell being spoken to like I was Bart Simpson or some fundamentally unserious character.

And now there are stupid articles talking about me, giving my mature age, citing this immature behaviour etc (the 2007 stuff and the Jurassic Park stuff), defining me utterly in to 2026. My tactic thus far has been to brazen it out totally, and continue to live my life in such a way that nobody could possibly believe I am the person in the article. It seems to work -- people who google me look right past it. 

Am I right in thinking it should be short and sweet? Lean on the ROO act etc, mention the crime is old and that I have a career now etc?

Yeah! It is straight forward. I can't remember what page it is on in this thread but I put links and a wee blurb and stuff about what I used. 

But essentially stated how the links/articles are harming my rehabilitation and contravene the rehabilitation of offenders act as well as stating how I'm not a famous person/politician etc. so they are no longer of any public relevance and should be removed under GDPR.

Then I got an email back I think a couple of days later saying they'll remove the links. Then ever since then any new links that have popped up I simply reply to that confirmation email with the links and they have removed them without any fuss or issues. Usually within about 24-48hrs too.

Thanks --- I will check out your links earlier in thread --  well my thinking is now.. their default mode would be to remove the links under those circumstances, so I'll make my case as bland and factual as possible, with emphasis on the rehab law.

Do they ask for a photocopy of your blank basic CRB certificate?

Nope, they never asked for anything like that. It was a few years ago but I think it was just a picture of my passport to prove I am me. No DBS or any other documentation was needed.

Well I'm finally doing it...I'll let you know how they respond to a spend 18 month sentence.

So those are THE links where the magic happens? No additional facility to speak of?

Here's my concern, going in:
"Click here if your name (or your client's name) is not the search query that produces the result(s) that you wish to have delisted"

Problem is, people google me by the wrong spelling of my name all the time, and get the offending article.

No confirmation email like I was expecting? I got the confirmation page though and the little incident number.

Nope, not other additional facility needed. 

It's been a hot minute since I've had to fill out the form but from memory there is an option for alternate spellings. I used it to cover all bases "think like John/Johnathan" etc.