Criminal Convictions

As part of Durham's duty of care to our students and staff, we ask applicants who have accepted their offer with us to declare if they have any 'relevant' unspent criminal convictions.

This page explains what information we collect, why we collect it, how we collect it, and what we do with it. If you have any questions, please contact us in confidence at criminal.records@durham.ac.uk.

If you are made and accept an offer for any course other than: PGCE, BA (Hons) Primary Education, MSW Social Work we will ask you to declare any unspent relevant convictions you may have. The reason we do not ask this question if you are made an offer for and accept it for BA (Hons) Primary Education is that a DBS check is included as part of the conditions of your offer which you must meet before you join us. Find out more about the UK Government's guidance on DBS checks.

Why do we ask these questions about unspent criminal convictions?

Having a criminal record does not necessarily prevent you from studying with us, we are an inclusive and diverse University, but we have a duty of care to all students and staff. However, it’s not just that, us knowing about relevant convictions means we can recognise any potential challenges, and we can then employ methods to mitigate risk for everyone.

We want to be certain you can fully participate in your course – some sentences have certain probation conditions; these may restrict you from fully engaging in your course. Us knowing in advance about this allows us to identify barriers to your learning - we are then able to offer you individually designed support to help you with your studies.

If you have a conviction and are unsure if it is now ‘spent’ please use this useful tool supplied by the charity Unlock: Disclosure Calculator - Unlock

What are relevant convictions?

The convictions we consider to be ‘relevant’ are listed below, and are as defined in The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974:

Offences listed in the Sex Offences Act 2003
Offences listed in the Terrorism Act 2006
Offences involving firearms or arson
Any kind of violence including (but not limited to) threatening behaviour, offences concerning the intention to harm, or offences that resulted in actual bodily harm
The unlawful supply of controlled drugs or substances, where the conviction concerns commercial drug dealing or trafficking
Custodial sentences of more than four years. Custodial sentences of more than four years can never become spent and therefore will need to be declared.

What shouldn't you tell us about?

We don't consider warnings, penalty notices for disorder (PNDs), anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) or violent offender orders (VOOs) as relevant, unless you've challenged a PND or breached the terms of an ASBO or VOO and this has then resulted in a criminal conviction.

Spent convictions are not relevant, and you don’t need to declare them.

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 permits some convictions to become 'spent' after a rehabilitation period. This period varies depending on the sentence imposed by the court.

Applicants from outside of the UK (United Kingdom)

If you are living outside of Great Britain and you have a conviction which involved an offence that is like those set out above, but was made by a court outside of Great Britain, and that conviction wouldn't be considered spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, you should declare it.

When and how do we ask for information about convictions?

When you accept your offer, we'll contact you confidentially via our CRM system. You'll be required to complete a form within five working days, which will inform us of your status in terms of unspent criminal convictions.

If you then join us in October, you may need to confirm your status again when you enrol for your course.

What information will we ask for?

If you have a relevant unspent conviction, initially we'll just ask you to supply the following on your form, often this will be all we need:

The precise offence for which you were convicted
The date of the conviction
The sentence you received

Occasionally, we'll need to ask for more information, this would usually be a statement briefly describing what happened, or a reference from a probation officer.

How do we review the information you’ve provided?

When we receive your information, the Policy Officer will review this. In most cases, they will be able to make a decision, which they will communicate to you.

In the instance of more complex cases, the Policy Officer may convene a Criminal Convictions Review Panel. This is a panel of senior University staff who represent key areas, for example, student welfare and the academic department.

The panel assess the risks and explores potential support requirements. When we have a decision from the Criminal Convictions Review Panel, we will communicate this to you by an email marked as ‘Private and Confidential’ from criminal.records@durham.ac.uk.

How do we store your information?

Our promise to you is that the criminal.records@durham.ac.uk email address is a restricted account, which is managed by: The Director of Student Recruitment and Admissions, The Head of Admissions and the Policy Officer within the Recruitment and Admissions Team.

The information you provide will not be included as part of your record with us. Nor will your information form any part of your student record. The information you provide will be stored in the limited access email account named criminal.records@durham.ac.uk only.

In most cases, the details you supply to us will be deleted from the criminal.records@durham.ac.uk files one year after the date on which you were due to start your course.

Find out more on how we manage student records, in our Student Applicants / Potential Student Applicants Privacy Notice.