Ah, you're quite right, it appears he was given a summons and wasn't arrested. It'll still go down in the Police National Computer, though - he might be lucky on fingerprints/DNA but I'm not sure about that these days. (The law has changed dramatically on summary stuff in the last few years and I haven't caught up.)
I've never heard of records being sealed in UK law so I'm not sure what's involved, and my suspicion is it doesn't happen here. You certainly don't get a blank slate on turning 16 or 18 or whatever - the stuff goes down forever (unless you can get it expunged, which is possible but very difficult). If you're less than 10 you can't commit a criminal offence by definition (you're deemed to be too young to form the requisite intention) but after that it's only the punishments that are changed if you're under 18.
The fact that you've been arrested (or summonsed, or whatever) should not be disclosed in court until after the verdict is decided, but will be used as a factor in determining sentence. But that's true whatever age you are or were. Actual convictions become 'spent' (i.e. don't have to be disclosed in certain circumstances) under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act much more more quickly if you were under 18 when you committed them.
But the whole growing 'database state' problem we have at the moment is the expansion of data retention and powers concerning stuff other than actual convictions. Like being summonsed for what pretty much any reasonable person would think was a trivial incident.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: FYI: Section 5:
Date: 2008-05-21 02:35 pm (UTC)I've never heard of records being sealed in UK law so I'm not sure what's involved, and my suspicion is it doesn't happen here. You certainly don't get a blank slate on turning 16 or 18 or whatever - the stuff goes down forever (unless you can get it expunged, which is possible but very difficult). If you're less than 10 you can't commit a criminal offence by definition (you're deemed to be too young to form the requisite intention) but after that it's only the punishments that are changed if you're under 18.
The fact that you've been arrested (or summonsed, or whatever) should not be disclosed in court until after the verdict is decided, but will be used as a factor in determining sentence. But that's true whatever age you are or were. Actual convictions become 'spent' (i.e. don't have to be disclosed in certain circumstances) under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act much more more quickly if you were under 18 when you committed them.
But the whole growing 'database state' problem we have at the moment is the expansion of data retention and powers concerning stuff other than actual convictions. Like being summonsed for what pretty much any reasonable person would think was a trivial incident.
Ooh, I'm starting to rant, sorry.