Spent Convictions – and how they work?

If you find yourself before the Magistrates Court facing a simple offence, you will need to determine whether you will plead not guilty and defend the matter at trial or plead guilty of the offence to conclude the case.

Often simple offences in the Magistrates Court are resolved by the imposition of a fine plus prosecution costs with or without a conviction being recorded.

If you are guilty of the charge, you may not wish to have the stigma of a conviction recorded against your good name.

The beauty of a spent conviction is that you are not legally obliged to tell or disclose to anyone the nature of the charge and the fact that it has been dealt with by the Courts.

We can assist you in applying to the Court for a Spent Conviction if you provide us with the appropriate material and instructions.

In a nutshell under s45 of the Sentencing Act once you are found guilty either by your plea of guilty or following trial, the Court may order a spent conviction if you qualify on the following grounds:

1.       The Court considers that you are an offender unlikely to commit an offence again; and

2.       In the opinion of the Court the offence is trivial; or

3.       You are a person of previous good character and a conviction recorded against your name would cause you to suffer adverse effects in the course of your employment or living circumstances generally.

If you are able to obtain and provide the Court with character reference material, naturally that would be helpful and prove to the Court that you are a person of previous good character and are unlikely to re-offend.

The concept behind spent convictions is to enable the Courts to draw a line in the sand dividing offence categories into serious convictions as against lesser convictions.  The law recognises that people of previous good character and those who are unlikely to re-offend or facing relatively trivial offences should not be stigmatised by the impact of a conviction recorded against their name and which may adversely affect their ability to pursue gainful employment or otherwise be prejudiced.

It also allows the Magistrate to recognise that people can sometimes make mistakes, commit offences and certainly be punished by way of a fine or otherwise but not suffering the long-term effects of a recorded conviction.

By Curt Hofmann