Arrested But No Conviction ,charges Dropped, Applying for BC

[akki112]

I was wrongly accused of Shoplifting in November 2008.I was arrested, bailed & then charged in December. My case was due in court in January 2009.I always maintained my innocence. Before the case even made to court, it was discontinued by CPS & all the charges against me were dropped. I am a software engineer & have no Criminal Record or conviction at all.

Now I am planning to apply for British Citizenship .

While filling in the form I have came across the following section of Form AN Application for naturalisation as a British citizen



Section 3: Good Character Requirement

In this section you need to give information which will help the Home Secretary to decide whether he can be

satisfied that you are of good character. Checks will be made with the police and possibly other Government Departments, the Security Service and other agencies.





Although I have no Convictions, Home office might come across the arrest & charges against me.

Do I have to disclose all this information about the unfortunate incidence of arrest in the section FURTHER INFORMATION NOT COVERED IN OTHER SECTIONS on plage 14 of Form AN Application for naturalisation as a British citizen ?



Please provide me details if it is necessary to be mentioned in my application at all as I have never been convicted also what details I need to specify.


Thanking in advance

[Mr Rusty]

Question 3.8 of the application says:

"3.8 Have you ever been charged or indicted inside or outside the United Kingdom with a criminal offence for which you have not yet been tried in court?"

The clear inference from "have not yet..." is - "are there any charges outstanding against you?".

If you're sure there aren't, I don't think you're obliged to declare the incident you describe. But I also think that if you did, there's no way that alone would disqualify you from British Citizenship, so it really doesn't matter whether you declare it or not. Probably better not to, because if you give the box-tickers who look at these applications cause to think they must make extra enquiries, it'll get thrown in a pile on one side and take many more months to be granted.

The requirement to be "of good character" is quite quaint in a way, isn't it? I know some people whom I would describe as thoroughly unpleasant characters, but they've probably never seen the inside of a court.

[akki112]

Thanks for your reply
I was not convicted & the case was discontinued but when the Home Office does the CRB checks it will find out that I was arrested & charged.I am not sure how long it gets the Police National Computers database to be updated with the latest findings.

If Police doesn't have the details of the case being discontinued then the home office case worker might ask for clarification.

If there are any Immigration advisors on this Forum,Please help me out.

[Backer]

How did your application go? Can you share with the forum?

[supercreature]

it is always better to declare than hide ... Home office will not than accuse you for cheating... I think if you will just declare that you were wrongly arrested but all the charges were dropped (I hope you will have some written evidence to send to Home office) you should be fine. Just declare and provide the evidence of charges being dropped.

[iyanu]

Supercreature wrote

it is always better to declare than hide ... Home office will not than accuse you for cheating... I think if you will just declare that you were wrongly arrested but all the charges were dropped (I hope you will have some written evidence to send to Home office) you should be fine. Just declare and provide the evidence of charges being dropped.

I agree with supercreature...Just declare that you were wrongly accused and give brief explanation or full using more paper-sheets if possible and include all correspondences attesting to your statement, I am sure you will be ok.