The Home Office has announced legislation which will filter certain old or minor offences from checks by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). The announcement follows the Court of Appeal decision in R (on the application of T) v Chief Constable of Greater Manchester and others [2013] EWCA Civ 25 CA, where the court held that the current system of blanket checks is not compatible with Art.8 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Serious violent and sexual offences, offences with a custodial sentence and multiple offences regardless of their nature will not be subject to change and will remain on checks. Adult cautions will be filtered from records after a period of six years. Cautions and equivalents administered to a young offender will be filtered after two years. However, a caution would only be filtered if it was not one of the offences specified as never being eligible for filtering. This list includes serious violent and sexual offences. A conviction received as a young offender resulting in a non-custodial sentence will be filtered from criminal records checks after five and a half years. An adult conviction resulting in a non-custodial sentence will be filtered after a period of 11 years. A conviction will only be filtered if there is no other offence on the individual's record.
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