There but for the grace of god go I. I happen not to have a criminal record but I’ve led a comparatively privileged life and it’s generally people who are poor or with drug addictions or with mental health issues who get into trouble with the law. And of course people of colour.

Louise Haigh has stepped down from government after a decade-old fraud case resurfaced. Haigh was mugged in 2013 and reported her work phone as stolen.  When she later found the phone, as she hadn’t had it at the time of the offence, she failed to tell the police and pled guilty to fraud by misrepresentation.

The surprising thing about the Louise Haigh case is that she is middle class and committed a relatively minor offence (yes fraud can be minor). People like Louise do not normally end up with a court sanction for the offence she is said to have been accused of – not fessing up to finding a mobile phone she had reported as stolen. I’m not clear what legal advice she got but giving a ‘no comment’ interview at the police station was not a good idea. For lower level offences it’s usually a good idea to admit responsibility if you did it. Then the police may well offer you a caution, for which the criminal record implications are much less severe than for a court sanction.

News journalists appear to doubt whether Louise made a genuine mistake in not reporting that she had in fact found the company phone which she had previously reported as stolen. I don’t think it’s that important. She pleaded guilty in the magistrates’ court and was sentenced to a conditional or absolute discharge. Either of these sentences are the lowest level a court can give. She should have been able to walk out of the court and get on with her life. And she did. Until Friday when Sky News revealed the offence which was committed in 2013, over ten years ago.

The world didn’t know of this offence, but did they need to or have a right to? There is no evidence she got into trouble with the police again. She appears to have told her boss, Sir Keir Starmer, and she is likely to have had to disclose it to the Labour party and during any vetting process.

She is one of many with criminal records. In fact one in four people of working age in England and Wales has a criminal record and many more have got into trouble with the law. If rehabilitation is to have any meaning, we should support people to move on from their crimes and not force them to admit them for ever.

Louise’s crime will not come up on basic DBS checks (which any employer can do) but it will be disclosed in the enhanced or standard DBS checks required for thousands of roles, including volunteering to read in a school. Is this proportionate? She did this crime over ten years ago and got the lowest possible magistrates’ court sanction. In most Western European countries and in many US states she would not be forced to declare it. People say she should have declared the crime publicly but I understand why she didn’t.

The stigma of criminal records is such that anything the person does is always set against the background of their historic offending. Rehabilitation means truly allowing people to move on from their past. We need attitudes to change and reform of DBS checks.

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