One conviction or multiple offences? The DBS filtering process

Ever since we published our Information Hub guide on the new DBS filtering process, our Helpline has been receiving queries left, right and centre about the filtering process and how it applies to them. It’s fair to say that, in lots of cases, it doesn’t help, because they have more than multiple convictions over many years, or received prison (or suspended) sentence.

One issue that seems to be quite common is where people believe themselves to have one conviction, only to find that, when they do a DBS check (or get a Police National Computer record) , they have a number of ‘offences’ on their record, all of which were dealt with at the same time in court. A common example is drink driving and driving without insurance. The court records this as one conviction, but would have two offences.

We’ve clarified this kind of example with the Home Office, who interpret this situation as meaning ‘multiple convictions’, meaning that none would be filtered from a DBS check.

This is something we’re looking at challenging, and as part of this, we’re keen to hear of people who may be affected by a similar kind of issue. The more examples we get, the better chance we have of finding a way of challenging this.

If this is something that affects you, please get in contact with our Helpline. If you have a copy of a DBS (or CRB) disclosure, or a copy of your PNC record, which shows this, please send this through too. All information is treated confidentially.