See? Told you. Nothing to worry about! 😉

Great news!!

Big shout out to khafka for firing off the email to CourtServe - even if it wasn't that which put this chain of events in motion (I suspect it might have been though!) this is a great result.

I've already noted their mention of the Ministry of Justice API - I don't currently have any info about this, but I for sure will take the opportunity to reach out formally to the MoJ to ensure they have protections in place to stop vigilante websites from accessing the API data when it is available.

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All views, opinions & contributions are my own and do not represent the views of Unlock unless specifically stated.

Website closed!!!  If only it were this easy to get rid of R**rose.

Website Closed

We regret to inform you that Court Archives is currently unavailable while we await the release of the Ministry of Justice's official API. This will allow us to deliver the most accurate and reliable court data possible, without any risk of inaccuracies.

At present, we simply don't have the resources to manually review and moderate the large volume of historical records to the high standard our users deserve.

Regrettably, a small number of details on the site have been incorrect in the past, and we are not prepared to compromise our reputation by continuing to operate in the current state.

We sincerely apologise to anyone who has been affected by the information on our site and thank you for your understanding during this period.

If you have any questions about a court archive or listing, please contact the court in question directly.

Slight update on this website, not sure if it's off the back of the email or not but they now have a disclaimer at the top: 

Notice: Magistrates' Court listings have been removed from this site until we can guarantee the safety of the listings.

Does this website show up at top of google searches for example. Unless it is on the first page, I doubt most employers will dig deep enough to find it.

Edit. I did a few checks, using names that are listed in court archives, to see if google picks them up. If they are mentioned in the local press then google can find them, but if not then they do not show up, meaning it is highly unlikely that an employer will be able to find their details.

Unless the employer has an HR policy that specifically involves them searching R**Rose, then the conviction is no more likely to be discovered on court archives than it is in the local press. I suggest therefore, that local press coverage is far more dangerous than being included in court archives.

I've been thinking about this all day...worried sick to be honest.  I really hate to be a doomsayer and I desperately hope this website is wrong, but every sex defendant has lost anonymity over the last 10 months. If this website sticks around I think all potential employers will use the search function on a candidate's name.  Worse still, it's going to likely be put on this 'rose' and others.  I desperately hope I'm wrong and someone here will tell me to shut up and stop worrying people, but I'm just looking at what's already happening.  Essentially, there is now reporting on all cases before the course outcome.

Looking at courtserve's terms and conditions:
This website is for personal use only. The copying, reproduction and/or distribution of any part of this website or any subscription service in any form or media whatsoever; and in any country, is expressly prohibited.

Potentially looks like courtarchives.co.uk is in breach of the above.
The 'rose' website is either signed up to courtserve or it's taking it from courtarchives.co.uk.  Either way, all sex cases are being put on their from the hearing onwards so this means a potential loss of anonymity for anyone as a defendant in any such case.  I've looked at the 'Rose' site today and it contains cases that were at the hearing stage in December.
Looks to me as though it would allow the website to pit every single sex case on their website - I suspect that's the aim unfortunately.

Most only go back 10 months. I've not found any that go back 24 months or longer.

Well I've sent an email off. You only YOLO once, right?

**EDIT**
Just editing this comment to state I've received a response. Nothing major yet, just that they've passed it onto the website team to investigate.

If they are indeed scraping the information from CourtServe, this would be in breach of CourtServe's T&Cs and they may want to know about it to see if there's any action they can take in terms of limiting access etc. Email addresses for CourtServe available on their website: CourtServe - Terms & Conditions

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All views, opinions & contributions are my own and do not represent the views of Unlock unless specifically stated.

As I say, I don't feel it's any more of a bigger deal than a Facebook group posting the information. 

Google will remove the URL in the search results so people will need to specifically know about that website and then know what to actually search for in order to find something which in turn seems to just be details that can already be obtained by doing the same thing via court rolls.

Obviously having another website potentially spreading a name and offence around is a pain in the arse but I honestly can't see this being much of a big deal compared to others, as I say, like other links Google will just treat it like any other link and the information would have to be specifically searched which is something you can already do through official legal channels. 

The listings I saw did not show the name of any offences, so every defendant is dragged into this, regardless of the offence, regardless of whether the case ever went to trial and also regardless of whether the defendant is a person or a company.

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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)

Name and offence is enough - this is a game-changer.  It's massive.  And they state the archives go back at least 24 months for most courts, perhaps longer. This is very worrying.

The listings I saw only showed the name, case reference and date, but just the name is bad enough. Some of them are bail applications, so it's not even guaranteed that the case will eventually go to trial.

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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)

It's just occurred to me that the details of every court case, defendant, charge etc. is now available on this website for at least months.  I'm just wondering how far they're going to go back.  They also have a search archives function.  Site is courtarchives.co.uk.

While it's annoying and shite I don't feel it's particularly egregious compared to other sites. Once Google agree to removal they'll easily remove the links, it'll just be another URL.

I know the Rose website you're talking about. I popped up on there despite my sentence being spent and the whole thing happening years prior. Google removed the links about me without any real issue beyond cataloguing multiple URLs so once one was removed a slightly different one popped up with a different ID number. 

After about 16 or 17 removals of Rose I haven't popped up for them again which leads towards confirming my theory that as it is a Wordpress site the ID numbers it attaches are just related to categories/tags the creator assigns like ID = Paedo, ID = images and so on so Google will just run through all the applicable ID's until they're all gone. 

Has anyone seen a new website called court archives which is listing every court case in every court over the last 6 months? Looks like they're taking a daily dump from the court serve site and the crown court equivalent. This looks worrying from the point of view of publicity.  From what I can tell, one website including the word 'rose' is then transposing the data onto their site, even before cases have begun.

Obviously this has a considerable impact on avoiding media publicity, and is also would potentially frustrate any attempts to avoid the Google effect, although I'm no expert with that regard.

It's clearly a concern if all sex cases are being dumped on this site, especially when they're still ongoing.