Should I declare my past caution or not ?

Hello everyone, thank you for reading this and I would really appreciate any help.

I have recently applied for British Citizenship and have received an email asking for further details.
I have been resident in Northern Ireland for the last 6 years and have applied from here. I did not declare any past criminal history as per the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Northern Ireland) Order 1978 , I do not have to declare any spent convictions. As it stands I do not currently have any ongoing trials, never received a custodial sentence, never received a fine, never received a suspended sentence. Also nothing violent or sexual in nature.

Trying to keep it as vague but also helpful, I received
1) A caution from the Police once because I was in an abusive relationship where the other party was constantly applying for Non-Molestation Orders to keep me from seeing my child but would drop the application on the day of the court appearance where the order would go before a judge.
2) Using the same method, I also received a conditional discharge for a breach of the NMO as I was baited into replying to a message. This happened in 2022 and the condition was not to appear before a court for another year but thankfully I have never had any issues ever since. I did go to family court a few times to get visitation rights.

Here is the email from the Home Office case worker:
"Criminal Convictions
I am writing to you with regards to your application for British Citizenship. We require further information from you before we can continue with the consideration of your application. Please reply to this email by
--/--/2025.
You have stated on your form that you haven’t had any historical criminal convictions to declare, and we wanted to clarify if this was correct.
Such convictions can range from all non-custodial convictions such as police cautions, fines to anything where a custodial sentence was given by a court. Anything that is relevant to the good character requirement explained in our online guidance at
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... y-guidance

This part of the application process requires a person to declare, irrespective of how long it was since an offence/conviction occurred which you confirmed that you had no past criminal convictions to declare as part of your application to us.

Please respond to this email address as soon as possible in response to the above. If you are aware of anything that might impact the good character requirement, please declare this as soon as possible, and provide any mitigation if relevant, so that we can take this into consideration."

I did read the guidance and some pages online from lawyers and as well as these boards but I wanted to double check everything before I reply.

Thank you very much !

Always best to declare, or else it could be interpreted as trying to hide facts. The Rehabilitation of Offenders (Northern Ireland) Order 1978 allows you to treat past convictions as spent but you still have to declare them for citizenship.

contorted_svy wrote: ↑

Wed May 21, 2025 10:19 am

Always best to declare, or else it could be interpreted as trying to hide facts. The Rehabilitation of Offenders (Northern Ireland) Order 1978 allows you to treat past convictions as spent but you still have to declare them for citizenship.

Thank you for replying, I have this from the gov.uk website , also found at : https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... riminality
"Applicants are required to disclose all convictions, regardless of whether or not they are ‘spent’ under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (1974 Act). You may take into account any past convictions regardless of when they took place, as nationality decisions are exempt from section 4 of the 1974 Act that provides for certain convictions to become ‘spent’ after fixed periods of time.

The only exception is where the person is resident in Northern Ireland, in which case the person is only required to disclose unspent convictions as defined in the Rehabilitation of Offenders (Northern Ireland) Order 1978 (see rehabilitation periods)."

Doesnt the second paragraph explicitly state that I do not have to disclose any spent convictions?

Thank you

It is not clear to me when the facts you stated at 1) in your first post happened, but 2) happened in 2022.

See https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... on-periods

Rehabilitation periods
The following table sets out rehabilitation periods prescribed by the Rehabilitation of Offenders (N. Ireland) Order 1978 which only apply to applicants resident in Northern Ireland.

Sentence End of rehabilitation period for adult offenders End of rehabilitation period for offenders under 18 at date of conviction
A sentence of imprisonment for life. Excluded from rehabilitation. Excluded from rehabilitation.
A sentence of imprisonment or corrective training for a term exceeding thirty months. Excluded from rehabilitation. Excluded from rehabilitation.
A sentence of imprisonment or corrective training for a term exceeding six months but not exceeding thirty months. 10 years from the date of the conviction in respect of which the sentence was imposed. 5 years from the date of the conviction in respect of which the sentence was imposed.
A sentence of cashiering, discharge with ignominy or dismissal with disgrace from Her Majesty’s service. 10 years from the date of the conviction in respect of which the sentence was imposed. 5 years from the date of the conviction in respect of which the sentence was imposed.
A sentence of imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months. 7 years from the date of the conviction in respect of which the sentence was imposed. 42 months from the date of the conviction in respect of which the sentence was imposed.
A sentence of dismissal from Her Majesty’s service. 7 years from the date of the conviction in respect of which the sentence was imposed. 42 months from the date of the conviction in respect of which the sentence was imposed.
Any sentence of service detention within the meaning of the Armed Forces Act 2006, or any sentence of detention corresponding to such a sentence, in respect of a conviction in service disciplinary proceedings. 5 years from the date of the conviction in respect of which the sentence was imposed. 30 months from the date of the conviction in respect of which the sentence was imposed.
A fine or any other sentence subject to rehabilitation under this Order. 5 years from the date of the conviction in respect of which the sentence was imposed. 30 months from the date of the conviction in respect of which the sentence was imposed.

So maybe you do need to disclose them based on how recent they are. the second one is only 3 years ago.