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Gulezar · Joined: 19 Jun 2007 Posts: 483

The only time I needed a police report was when I applied for a visa to Saudi Arabia. I thought that the visa process required a Police Report only IF YOU HAD ONE, so I sent the visa application to the Saudi Embassy. They sent it back and told me that I needed a police report stating that I had no police record, no convictions in the district. I only remember that the process for applying for a Saudi visa was rather complex and opaque. I think the application had to go to two different offices in my capital city and neither office talked to the other office. Maybe recruiters cut through all the red tape, but I was a direct hire and my university only sent a contract. There were companies that I could have paid to do the application, but I figured that it would not be all that complicated. Wrong! Welcome to Saudi Arabia.

In any case, Saudi required a police report at that time.

sharter · Joined: 25 Jun 2008 Posts: 878 Location: All over the place

I did it last year ...it's a pain in the arse and not cheap. You get your CRB check done on line, they send it to you and then it has to be notarised by a lawyer. You then send it off to be apostilled by the foreign office a long with your certs. They send it all back to you. Cost about 300 quid all in. BEWARE with the new CRB system, no-one signs it and there is just a bar code. No lawyer will notarise a document without a signature, so you must specifically request that the CRB check is SIGNED by a PERSON or you'll just go around in circles. Of course, no-one tells you this. To get the CRB check you also need to provide a UK address backed up with 2 recent bills in your name....not always easy for a TEFLon- Don. It can take months, especially at peak periods. Employers used to do all this or have agents who did. Of course, the best ones still do.