Sectioning by the police – does it show up on your Criminal Records Bureau check?

If any of you want to help out at your school or work with children or vulnerable adults, you will need to go through a Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) check here in the UK (I don’t know what the corresponding test in the UK is – any feedback gratefully received).

The CRB is a government body which has been set up to help organisations in the public, private and voluntary sectors by identifying candidates who may be unsuitable to work with children or other vulnerable members of society. Given the number of high profile cases where sex offenders or other criminals have ended up working with children, the Government has issued guidance to schools and care homes, to ensure that they conduct proper checks on applicant’s backgrounds to determine whether or not they should be working with children and vulnerable adults.

A reader of this blog has said that, because she was sectioned by the police under the Mental Health Act, that she is afraid that it will show up on her CRB check. Because she works with children, she is now afraid that she won’t be able to work with them.

If any of you have ever been sectioned by the police, does this mean that it would show on your CRB check?

I have now researched this and, so far, my research says that being sectioned in relation to a non-criminal act will not show up on a CRB check because merely being sectioned is not a “crime” or an “criminal offence”. The fact that the police were involved does not make you a criminal.

If, however, your sectioning was as a result of a criminal act, then it may well show up. If that’s the case then you need to determine what type of offence it was as there are varying degrees of severity and varying types of offence. So, for example, if it was any kind of sexual offence, then clearly that will be far more serious then a lesser offence. If you have any questions or doubts about your rights, you can go on the CRB website and it will tell you.

On a personal note, I do not have any criminal records, although I was arrested once when I was a University student – the details are at the end if you want a laugh! Nothing to do with any criminal act on my part, I hasten to add.

the worst I have ever done was when I was a University student, in Oxford. My crime was to try and reason with a policeman who was then trying to arrest my drunken Rugby playing boyfriend following a Rugby team strip tease at a friends 21st birthday party – not unusual behaviour for Rugby players or for undergraduates but the local police were not amused! The policeman’s wife had been offended by the sight of so many bottoms (she was driving behind the bus containing the Rugby team) that she insisted on them being arrested!). I told the policeman that he couldn’t arrest my boyfriend unless he could identify him in court; given that my boyfriend’s bottom was the only part of him that his wife had seen, the police would never have been able to identify him!!! The policeman got so cross when I was telling him the law, that he arrested me and threw me in a cell for the day to teach me a lesson!!! I hadn’t sworn, nor threatened, nor touched him but I had told him the law and clearly that didn’t impress him…….

So, apart from that, I’ve never been a criminal, so my CRB check should be clear.