djcat wrote:Hi, thanks for your reply. I did not disclose anything to anybody as I was not asked before. My question is not to see in which way to twist the facts but to understand if I need to disclose convictions which do not even exist anymore by the law of where it happened. According to the law of my birth country, spent sentences of less then 12 months and non custodial need to be erased out of all records after five years. My sentence is from 2009. Furthermore, it is a law of that country that if anybody knew of my sentence that person must not disclose it to anybody and that nobody can hold it against me.
From your post I understand that the sentence would be a serious one in the UK, however where I was born you get that kind of result for some not so serious offences. Certainly nobody was hurt, the sentence is spent, all fines are paid, I am an honest citizen paying lots of taxes and even the very question of guilt is debatable but I am not trying to find excuses, just what I need to tell according to the book.
From what I read in the notes I need to disclose all convictions and that a non custodial sentence of less then 12 months is not automatically a reason to deny citizenship. However if that conviction according to the law of where it happened does not exist anymore, do I still need to disclose it?
My feeling is that it needs to be disclosed. For example, in the UK a cinviction may become "spent" after a certain period of time, but it still needs to be disclosed in immigration applications. In your case, declaring it should not matter, as non-custodial offencrs which occured more than 3 years ago should not disqualify you. On the other hand, if you do not declare it, it may be considered deception on your side. Also, if you come from EU counyry, UK can quite easily check your coutry's records, keep this in mind.
