Call for more access to conviction information

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The government has said it cannot back a private members bill that seeks to make it easier for the public to find out if people have been convicted of offences.

The bill was introduced by Christopher Chope, Tory MP for Christchurch.

Chope said the "basic principle" is that that if somebody is convicted in a court, that knowledge should be publicly available and easily accessed by the public.

"At the moment, much to the surprise of many of us, unless one is actually in the court and hears what is happening or reads about it in the newspapers, it might go undetected and might be hard to detect in the future," he said.

"This bill would mean that if somebody was convicted in a magistrates court and that conviction was recorded by that court, as it has to be under a statutory duty, it should be possible for anybody to get access to that information.

"At the moment, the only way somebody can get access to that information is by carrying out a criminal records office check.

"They can do that only if they know a police officer who is prepared to carry out the check, unofficially, on their behalf, with or without a fee, or if they belong to an organisation that can get access to the criminal records office’s information."

Greg Knight (Con, East Yorkshire) expressed concern at the impact of the bill.

"If the residents of a street discovered that one resident had a criminal record, they might decide to try to hound him out of the area by threatening and abusive behaviour," he said.

Home office minister Lynne Featherstone said the bill would mean a central database of all court case outcomes.

"We have never had such a database before."

She also told MPs that the cost would be prohibitive and it could also "work against rehabilitating those convicted by the courts".

"It is difficult to see what access to court records would provide for the public unless there were some search facility.

"My hon. Friend said that there would be, but that is not specified in the bill.

"Such a facility would be very costly to develop, as literally millions of records a year would need to be sorted through.

"Someone could find the result they were looking for only if they knew the exact person, court or hearing involved.

"Effectively, the public would have access to endless data but get very little useful information—a costly exercise for very little public value."

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