Imagine this… employee convicted of manslaughter

You work in the HR department of a university. You arrive at your desk one morning to find an email from an anonymous source, containing a link to an online newspaper article from the Warrington Post. The article is dated February 1998 and details how a 28-year-old male, Alan Michaels, was convicted of the manslaughter of his 2-year-old son. The newspaper article is very brief and the circumstances are not set out in full, but it appears that he pleaded guilty to the offence and received a 3-year probation order.
Alan Michaels has worked for your university for the last 5 years. He started as a Lecturer in the School of Engineering and Technology and was promoted after 2 years to the role of Senior Lecturer. He is very popular with the students and has an unblemished disciplinary record.

Are you confident about the steps you would take next? Was Alan under any legal obligation to declare this information to you when he applied for the Lecturer role 5 years ago? Do you have any concerns about reputational risk?

At our Recruiting Safely and Fairly training, we discuss practical and reasonable solutions to real-life case studies such as the one described above. To find out more, visit our training booking page or email employeradvice@nacro.org.uk.