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Whistleblower
Joined: 03 Feb 2007
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 Posted: Thu Jul 10, 2008 9:54 pm Post subject: The UK CRB Check is Useless |
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Now I like to read about UK news as it could affect me indirectly. Anyways, I was reading about some mother requiring a CRB Check so she could take her son to school by taxi. Anyhow, what really caught my eye was not the main story but really about the CRB Checks from the UK.
Apparently the CRB has branded many people criminals even though they are not a criminal. This got me thinking about the potential risk for those wishing to live and work in Korea via an E2 Visa. There could be people wanting to come here but being prevented by the lunacy of the CRB Check.
Any people here who are interested in this? Opinions? Is the CRB Check from the UK applicable for those who want to work in Korea? Is it effective against criminally inclined adults who want to visit Thailand to enjoy some good old child fun? I think not.
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Mother prevented from taking own son to school because of criminal record checks
By Caroline Gammell
A woman was prevented from taking her own son to school because she hadn't been screened for a criminal record.
Jayne Jones with her son Alex: Criminal record checking is required because she uses a taxi to take her son to a special needs school
Jayne Jones had been escorting 14-year-old severely epileptic Alex each day by taxi, taking specialist equipment with her in case he had a fit.
But the mother-of-two was told she would not be allowed to continue doing so until her details had been run through a Criminal Record Bureau (CRB) check.
The case came to light only days after it emerged that hundreds of innocent people were branded criminals by the CRB, which was set up to vet people working with children.
Figures seen by The Daily Telegraph showed that in the year to February 2008, 680 people were issued with incorrect information on their background checks by the CRB.
Last week a woman who was wrongly labelled a violent alcoholic and drug addict by the CRB was told she would have to allow police to take her fingerprints if she wanted to clear her name.
Amanda Hodgson, 36, a law-abiding mother-of-three, learned of her "criminal past'' when applying for a post as a welfare assistant at her local primary school.
She was told she had a criminal record stretching back 18 years, including three convictions for assaulting police officers, and the only way to clear her name was to get her fingerprints checked against every unsolved crime in the country.
Mrs Jones, from Aberfan in south Wales, said stopping her taking her son - who has cerebral palsy - to school was "political correctness gone mad".
"It's crazy that I have to be CRB checked before I can ride in a taxi with my own son," she said.
"I have to be checked to go in a taxi with him, but if I was able to drive him myself they wouldn't care and even offered to pay me expenses.
"The taxi company is great and they carry Alex's medication but they won't use it and they wouldn't know how to put him in the recovery position if needs be."
Alex, who takes a combination of 32 anti-convulsant tablets a day, is currently travelling to his special needs school five miles away in Merthyr Tydfil with no one trained to cope if he has an attack.
He has been fitted with the Vagus Nerve Stimulation (VNS) therapy system under the skin, which works like a pacemaker to help control electrical signals which can malfunction and cause him to seize.
But his parents are the only ones trained to use and understand the therapy.
His 42-year-old father Malcolm has a full-time job and Mrs Jones is the boy's full-time carer.
A spokesman from Merthyr Tydfil Council said: "The CRB checking is a requirement of our transport provisions in relation to adults travelling on home-to-school transport in the capacity of an escort.
"This is a standard requirement and has been for several years.
"Any adult acting as an escort will, in the public gaze, be viewed as acting with the full acquiescence of the council and hence with its implied authority.
"For the protection of the council and all vulnerable persons in its care it's essential all those endowed with an authority, implicit or explicit, should meet the security requirements within the transport contract provisions." |
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artyom
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
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| Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 6:43 am Post subject: |
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It's not a CRB check that you get for immi in Korea. CRB checks can only be obtained by companies registered to apply for CRB checks on behalf of their employees and as such an individual can't actually apply for a CRB check. Instead schools and organizations apply for the check after the individual fills out a form for them.
As Korean immi isn't a UK organization and is not registered with the CRB they can't apply for a criminal record check for us and neither can Korean hagwons or schools.
So instead what you need is a Subject Access Report which we can apply for under the Data Protection Act.
Basically what that means is that under the DPA anyone whose records are held on computer are allowed to request to see what information is held about them and as the police sometimes hold records on their computers, by law we are entitled to see what information they hold about us. The police are not the CRB though.
However you could have murdered a child and the police might not have it on their computer for whatever reason which would seemingly show you have no criminal record. On the other hand you could have been arrested for possessing weed say 7 years ago which they might have on their computer thus denying you your visa.
All in all it seems a little hit and miss to me. Luckily I've never had a run in with the police to date so hopefully I won't have anything to worry about |
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Julius
Joined: 27 Jul 2006
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| Posted: Fri Jul 11, 2008 7:54 am Post subject: |
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| artyom wrote: |
So instead what you need is a Subject Access Report which we can apply for under the Data Protection Act. |
Indeed. Which is obtainable from your county constabulary. They will also forward your details to the police national computer and send you a national report separately a month later (although just the former will be enough for your E2.)
Don't even waste your time with the multitude of criminal background checks offered by private companies. They may be ok for a select handful of employers in the UK, but they're not recognised by Korean immigration. |
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