1. The Regulatory and Ethical Framework
Reporting on a person’s past offending engages both accuracy and privacy. IPSO Editors’ Code Clause 1 (Accuracy) requires care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information. Clause 2 (Privacy) states that everyone is entitled to respect for their private and family life, and that editors must justify any intrusion without consent. A conviction that was once a legitimate matter of public record can, with the passage of time, acquire a renewed expectation of privacy.
The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 provides the statutory backdrop. It sets out when a conviction becomes “spent” and a person is generally entitled to be treated as if it had not occurred. The Act is not primarily aimed at the press, but it frames the public’s and the individual’s expectations, and it affects some defamation defences. The charity Unlock provides authoritative guidance on the Act and on disclosure.
The core editorial question is not “is it true?” but “is it still relevant, and is the intrusion justified?” This guide sets out how to answer that. Read it alongside our misuse of private information and defamation risk checklist guides.
2. What “Spent” Means
Under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, most convictions become “spent” after a rehabilitation period, after which the person is generally entitled not to disclose them and is treated in many contexts as if the conviction had never happened. The length of the rehabilitation period varies according to the sentence, and some of the most serious custodial sentences are never spent. Cautions, community sentences and fines carry their own periods.
The exact periods are set by statute and change over time, so journalists should not rely on remembered figures; consult Unlock or a media lawyer for the current position on a specific case. For editorial purposes, the key idea is that a spent conviction signals a person the law regards as rehabilitated — a strong pointer that republishing it demands justification rather than assuming a continuing public entitlement to know.
3. Defamation and Privacy Risk
Two distinct legal risks attach to republishing old or spent convictions. The first is defamation. Truth is a defence under the Defamation Act 2013, so an accurate account of a real conviction is not usually defamatory in itself. The danger lies in imputed meaning: reviving a spent conviction can carry the implication that a person is presently of bad character or a current threat, which may exceed what the record supports. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 also affects defamation defences where a spent conviction is published with malice.
The second risk is misuse of private information. UK courts have recognised, in cases concerning rehabilitation, that a person can acquire a reasonable expectation of privacy in a spent conviction as time passes and they rebuild their life. That expectation is not absolute and is weighed against the public interest, but it means the mere fact that a conviction is genuine does not settle whether republishing it is lawful or ethical. Where the justification is thin, take legal advice before proceeding.
4. De-indexing and the “Right to Be Forgotten”
The so-called “right to be forgotten” describes the ability, in some circumstances, to have outdated or irrelevant personal information delisted from search engine results. In NT1 & NT2 v Google, the High Court recognised that delisting can be required in some circumstances, balancing an individual’s privacy against the public interest in access to information. The principle sits within data protection law and the individual’s rights against search engines rather than against publishers directly.
Delisting does not erase the underlying journalism or the court record, and it does not apply automatically. For journalists the relevance is indirect but real: it signals that the law accepts a person’s interest in not being permanently defined by old conduct. That should inform decisions about whether to keep old convictions prominent, refresh them without new justification, or accept requests to review historic material. The ICO oversees the data protection dimension.
5. Genuinely Relevant vs Gratuitous
Public interest is the pivot. The following patterns help distinguish a conviction that genuinely bears on the current story from one that merely adds colour or piles on.
More likely relevant
The person holds or seeks public office; the past offence bears directly on their current role, public claims or trustworthiness; a continuing or repeated pattern of offending is itself the story; or the person has put their own record into the public domain.
More likely gratuitous
The conviction is old and spent, unconnected to the present matter; the person has served their sentence and rebuilt their life; the detail adds sensation rather than understanding; or it is raised chiefly to undermine an unrelated complaint or claim.
Always test and record
IPSO Clause 2 requires editors to justify intrusions into privacy. Document the public-interest reasoning before publication, and be able to explain why the specific detail was necessary rather than merely available.
6. Jigsaw Identification
Jigsaw identification occurs when details spread across one or more reports combine to identify a person who should not be named, even though no single item names them. It is a particular hazard around past convictions, where family members, victims or children may be entitled to anonymity, and where seemingly innocuous details — a location, an employer, a relationship — can together unmask someone.
Coordinate across articles and, where possible, across outlets, and ask whether each identifying detail is genuinely necessary to the public-interest purpose. Our court and justice reporting and crime reporting guides cover reporting restrictions and anonymity in more detail.
7. Red Flags
- ⚠Reviving a spent conviction with no fresh public-interest justification
- ⚠Implying present bad character or danger from an old, unconnected offence
- ⚠Raising a past conviction chiefly to discredit an unrelated complaint or claim
- ⚠Relying on "it is true" without asking whether the intrusion is justified
- ⚠Adding identifying details that risk jigsaw identification of protected people
- ⚠Keeping old conviction stories prominent or refreshing them without review
- ⚠Reporting exact rehabilitation periods from memory rather than checking the current law
8. Reporting Checklist
Legal & Ethics Tools
Before reviving an old conviction, run the story through the defamation risk checklist and the Ethics Flowchart to test the public-interest justification.
10. Common Mistakes
- ›Assuming truth ends the analysis: An accurate report can still misuse private information or carry a defamatory imputation. Accuracy is necessary but not sufficient; relevance and justification still have to be established.
- ›Treating de-indexing as censorship of journalism: Delisting a search result is not the same as erasing the article or the court record. Framing every privacy or delisting request as an attack on press freedom misreads the law and the ethics.
- ›Ignoring the passage of time: A conviction that was fair game at the time of the trial may acquire a renewed expectation of privacy years later. Age and rehabilitation change the balance and must be reassessed, not assumed static.
- ›Over-identifying protected people: Adding location, employer or family detail can jigsaw-identify victims, children or others entitled to anonymity. Include only what the public-interest purpose genuinely requires.