Re: Criminal Conviction A Problem?
Lewis my man,
I would be very very careful with what you take from this thread, a lot of the comments, whilst encouraging, are ill informed. I have researched this matter myself very carefully as I have a spent "bind over" on my record for the rediculous offence of indecent exposure from a few years ago. Here is what I think is the best advice you will get, however again don't take everything I say at face value, i may also be not entirely correct. I don't know anything about whether your conviction prevents you from holding an ATPL or airside pass, may be best to ring the CAA about that. I do however know a bit about the getting a job with an airline side of it.
1. Airlines can be exempt from the rehab of offenders act under grounds of national security. If exempt, they are entitled to seek an Enhanced Disclosure on you. It is very likely that this will show up your spent arson conviction.
2. When you apply for a pilots job it will ask for details of any convictions on the application form. This section of the form will, by law, say explicitly whether or not they are exempt from the rehab of offenders act. If they state that they are exempt then you will have to put down your spent conviction. This will not look good. If you do not put it down and they subsequently check, through an enhanced disclosure, it will look even worse.
I doubt whether airline recruiters will take a sympathetic view to past convictions, as there will be hundreds of other non-convicted pilots for them to choose from I reckon your chances of gaining a job will be slim.
As a potential life line however it may be the case that your spent conviction may not even show up on your enhanced disclosure if it was of a certain type and long enough ago. Try ringing NACRO (an advice helpline for these sort of issues) on 02075826500, who will be able to help.
3. If the airline is not exempt from the rehab of offenders act then they are, by law, not allowed to ask for details of any spent convictions. Their compliance with the rehab act will be stated explicitly by law on any job application forms. If this is the case then do not put your spent conviction down, as they can only get a basic disclosure on you which will show up nothing.
I think the real make or break issue here is whether or not the airlines choose to exercise their right to be exempt from the rehab of offenders act on job applications. It may be that even though they can, some of them may not bother, as the time and costs associated with getting an enhanced disclosure might not be to their liking.
Hence the following questions need to be answered, can anybody help?
Does anyone know whether or not airlines choose to exercise their right to be exempt from the rehab of offenders act? If so, how many do, and how many don't?
Has anyone filled out an airline job application form recently, and can they remember if it specified whether or not the airline was exempt from the act?
Also, from a personal point of view, whilst Lewis' arson conviction will almost certainly proclude him from getting a pilots job should it be revealed to a potential future airline employer, will they take the same line with my very minor, completely rediculous indecent exposure digression, should they get their eyes on it?
In other words, do the recruters take an arbitrary "no one works for us with any kind of criminal record", or will they differentiate in the cases of very minor/ completely rediculous offences?