Rehabilitation of Offenders (Northern Ireland) Order 1978

Rehabilitated persons and spent convictions N.I.

3.—(1) Subject to paragraph (2), where an individual has been convicted, whether before or after the commencement of this Article, of any offence or offences, and the following conditions are satisfied, that is to say—

(a) he did not have imposed on him in respect of that conviction a sentence which is excluded from rehabilitation under this Order; and

(b) he has not had imposed on him in respect of a subsequent conviction during the rehabilitation period applicable to the first-mentioned conviction in accordance with Article 7 a sentence which is excluded from rehabilitation under this Order;

then, after the end of the rehabilitation period so applicable (including, where appropriate, any extension under Article 7(4) of the period originally applicable to the first-mentioned conviction) or, where that rehabilitation period ended before the commencement of this Article, after the commencement of this Article, that individual shall for the purposes of this Order be treated as a rehabilitated person in respect of the first-mentioned conviction and that conviction shall for those purposes be treated as spent.

(2) A person shall not become a rehabilitated person for the purposes of this Order in respect of a conviction unless he has served or otherwise undergone or complied with any sentence imposed on him in respect of that conviction; but the following shall not, by virtue of this paragraph, prevent a person from becoming a rehabilitated person for those purposes—

(a) failure to pay a fine or other sum adjudged to be paid by or imposed on a conviction, or breach of a condition of a recognizance to keep the peace or to be of good behaviour or to keep the peace and be of good behaviour;

(b) breach of any condition or requirement applicable in relation to a sentence which renders the person to whom it applies liable to be dealt with for the offence for which the sentence was imposed, or, where the sentence was a suspended sentence of imprisonment, liable to be dealt with in respect of that sentence (whether or not, in any case, he is in fact so dealt with).

[F1 (2A) In paragraph (2)(a) the reference to a fine or other sum adjudged to be paid by or imposed on a conviction does not include a reference to an amount payable under a confiscation order made under Part 4 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.]

F1 2002 c. 29