Hooray, we're getting there slowly, except that courts deal with people who are suspected of being guilty, not suspected of being innocent. Why on earth would the CPS send a person to a criminal trial who they suspect is innocent?
Lets retain some rationality here. He's not on a barring list. He may be rejected from certain sectors of employment, where this case is deemed relevant information, if his potential employer isn't prepared to take on that risk. That isn't 'wrecking his life', it's possiblly restricting his potential field of employment slightly. It sucks for him as a qualified teacher (who is so desperate to be a teacher that he was a taxi driver) but I think saying it has wrecked his life is a bit of an exaggeration.
You can state it as many times as you like. I've clearly stated my position that I agree it currently works this way and that I am strongly of the opinion that the current process is morally wrong.
...which comes back to my point that if we choose a simplified process to save time and effort then our society is placing cost over the rights of potentially innocent people.
Can't imagine many people found not-guilty in a criminal court would want to be raked over the coals again in a civil case to decide if they actually more likely than not did commit the crime. Especially because it would look much worse to have an official public mark against your name as being a rapist or whatever than a rather secretive Enhanced-CRB one.
But the decision whether a case appears on the enhanced dbs checks is dependent on the job itself and whether it is relevant. Your process would be unworkable as you'd have to go through a huuuuuuge list of potential jobs and decide which ones it was or wasn't relevant to.
The prosecution would have to ask for it to be included.
We've discussed the Huntley case multiple times and my response is always the same... We should not be using one extreme, very emotive, case to set our principles. Doing so leads to poor decisions because of emotion.
I've given my answer. Extreme emotive cases should not dictate principles.
Likely to be costly and, therefore, not requested unless the individual was likely to be working with kids etc. So the OP case with him being a taxi driver at the time, before later switching to teaching, wouldn't be included.
Same applies to all those football coaches currently being sent down for historic offences. Commonly, it's reported that people did go to the police, but limited evidence meant charges weren't able to be brought. Such multiple reports could have resulted in appearance on enhanced-CRBs if such a system had been in place.
Yes it could be included on the CRB... If you are also prepared for innocent people to be included on there.
Equally, imo, we should be protecting vulnerable innocent people from potentially preventable exposure to sex offenders, rather than simply run roughshod over them because its unfair to a few individuals that they can't get the specific job they want.
Would you be OK if the police wanted to put your name on there because of an accusation you knew to be completely made up?
Would you be happy for a family member to be sexually assaulted by someone known to the police who was simply not convicted due to a lack of evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt? The emotive questions work both ways.
No I wouldn't be happy personally but I've already explained that what I would personally feel in that situation is not necessarily what the law should be based on. Society as a whole should take precedence, as catering to the individual circumstances all the time would leave the law tied up in knots.
I would be extremely angry about it. But personally I would prefer innocent people not be falsely named and for other controls to be put in place for vulnerable people.
