Women Prostituted as Teenagers to Challenge Retention of Criminal Records

London: Jon Robins, Justice Gap: A legal challenge begins of the policy requiring the retention of all criminal convictions until a person reaches 100 years of age. The women bringing the challenge were forced into prostitution as teenagers and have multiple criminal convictions for soliciting and loitering. They had previously won a legal challenge of the operation of the Disclosure and Barring Scheme which required them to disclose these records to employers and others (R(QSA and ors) v Secretary of State for the Home Dept [2018] EWHC 639 (Admin)).

They are no longer required to show these records of their abuse and exploitation from many years back.  However, the National Police Chief Council’s policy on deleting records requiring records to be held until the offender reaches the age of 100.  This is despite the fact that many of the convictions would no longer be classed as a crime because the offence of soliciting and loitering was amended to exclude children under the Street Offences Act 1959.

Source: Jon Robins, Justice Gap, https://is.gd/7bsAoV