SusanGaszczak

The BBC are reporting today that a new database of fired employees will be launched later this month. This database will allow companies to access past employment records and find out if you have been dismissed for a ‘crime' you may not have not been charged with or let alone found guilty of.

This is a disaster for our rights. The database does not need to contain actual proven crime. If businesses want to check employee's criminal record they can do this through CRB checks. Even though that is not infallible as one resident in my local village already knows (see article pasted below). This is not an isolated case, see here for another.

This database though is designed to screen out people who have had minor lapses in their sense of judgement, and is open to widespread abuse. Whilst I do not want to see businesses stolen from, people should not be labelled because of one unproven incident. It could be as minor as making a personal call.

From The Express on Sunday - 04/06/2006
By Ted Jeory
A CLEANER has been sacked from Yarl's Wood detention centre after the Home Office confused her with a criminal.
Melanie Dudley, 35, has not been in trouble with police but her bosses accused her of concealing past convictions.
The mother-of-two was sacked on the spot by cleaning contractor Aramark and escorted out of the detention centre in Bedfordshire, which houses suspected illegal immigrants.

She was told by letter from the Home Office: "At question 33 of the questionnaire you have clearly indicated that you have no criminal record. However, when checking police records information came to light that a person using your name and details as an alias had been convicted of several offences between 1999 and 2002.

"As a result of this it was decided that security clearances could not be granted as it was thought that you had not displayed the necessary standards of honesty and integrity required for a security clearance."

Mrs Dudley, from Shortstown, Beds, later discovered that her identity had been confused with a Scottish criminal with a string of 30 convictions who had the same date of birth and full name as Mrs Dudley.

Since being sacked in February she has not been able to find a job as she claims employers are put off hiring her due to the way she was forced to leave Yarl's Wood.

Now Mrs Dudley and her family could lose their house as they have fallen behind on mortgage repayments and action has been launched to repossess their home.

The Home Office told her she should contact the police to clarify the situation.
But a check at the Criminal Records Bureau showed she has no convictions or cautions. She said: "All I want is to be able to get on with my life and provide for my family. I am not even after compensation. If they gave me the money I would have earned since I was sacked I would be happy with that but I would settle with an apology from the Home Office."

A spokesman for the Home Office said it cannot comment on individual cases.
In 2002 a group of inmates escaped from Yarl's Wood, one of Europe's largest immigrant detention centres, after starting a fire. The blaze, which cost taxpayers an estimated £38million, followed a riot by detainees unhappy at conditions.

At least three people were injured before 75 firemen and 100 police moved into the former Ministry of Defence base.
The riot was said to have started after Nigerian asylum seeker Eunice Edozieh, 56, became hysterical when she was refused entry to a chapel in an all-male area of the centre. She later tried to sue for more than £50,000 from the Home Office and Group4, which ran the centre, claiming her human rights were breached.