Telling the employer

Convicted Driver Insurance

Sillylivvy

Member
Hi
Do I need to tell my boss?
I don’t have to drive for work and can get into the office so my work is not affected in anyway as I can work from home too.
It’s not in my employment contract but I did find something on the code of conduct on our intranet site.
Really scared they will use it as a way to get rid of me as the HR manager has already put in an email to one of my bosses that I get over paid......
Does anyone on here have any experience or advice?
Thanks
 
In general a conviction doesn't have any legal protection for employment rights. If your employer finds out, they must consider your particular case, especially surrounding the responsibility you have, but can dismiss you.

If you don't tell them and they find out, they can still dismiss you either for the conviction, or because the implied trust in your contract has been breached, even if it is not an explicit term in your contract. If it is in your code of conduct that you should disclose they have a very strong case.

Both are very difficult to defend at employment tribunal. Only you know your employer and level of responsibility, it goes without saying if you work with children or have access to considerable financial resources they are likely to see it differently to working in a call centre.

You need to declare the convictions for five years, until it is spent. After that it is an automatic win in tribunal if you are dismissed.

Even if they do not dismiss you now they can change their mind over the coming five years, but would normally need a reason to do it, e.g. change in responsibility.

Because it is complicated, and you are in a weaker position, you should discuss it with your union rep if you have one.
 
I am 5 months into a 23 month ban. My employer never asked me for a copy of my driving license or if I had any convictions. My contract says I am available for “travel” up to 50% of my job. Where I have had to “travel” over these months, I have used public transport. So far so good, but I doubt it will last for another 18 months. At some point I will need to go abroad, where they will expect me to hire a car. And us DR10s can’t hire a car for 5 years.

I will definitely get to Christmas, and maybe beyond. I’m glad I didn’t tell the employer. They would have fired me 5 months ago. Even my probo officer told me not to tell them, as did my solicitor. The harsh facts are, if I’m fired, I will find it very difficult to get another job in my field. So we will lose our house and become homeless as I won’t be able to afford the mortgage.

In your case, if driving for work was not part of your contract, I wouldn’t tell them. You’re perfectly entitled to sell your car and use public transport to get to work. Lots of people don’t drive to work. I haven’t lied to anyone so far. Simply withheld the truth. I was in the newspaper, reported with my name and address. Nobody knows apart from my family. It’s only sad-acts that read the “from the courts” pages in the paper, and their opinions don’t matter.
 
The other way of looking at it of course is if you can find a trusted manager or someone dopey in HR and tell them, and they don't take any action, then if someone else finds out at a later date and your role hasn't changed you should have some protection.
 
Update- told my boss who was amazing. He had to tell HR and our HR director said no further action was needed and hoped that I was ok. So all good. I can now crack on and get the next year done. Thanks for all your replies! It is nice to know that there are people out there who are going through the same.
 
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