HSMP eligibility with serious driving conviction

[niw2]

Hi folks,

I am looking to apply under the HSMP. Generally, my qualifications under HSMP are promising -- I am a 25 year old New Zealander with two bachelors degrees and two years professional experience -- but I am uncertain whether I am automatically disentitled due to a serious traffic conviction entered against me four years ago.

The conviction is drinking and driving causing injury (a regretted by-product of my student days). The Court disqualified me from driving for one year and sentenced me to carry out community work and pay a fine.

I would be grateful if somebody could advise whether I am able to apply under the HSMP despite my conviction and, if I am entitled to apply, what additional steps I will have to take to be accepted.

Thanks in advance.

[gordon]

You may qualify for initial HSMP approval on the basis of your earnings, degrees, age, etc., and the issue of convictions may not come up, but perhaps you might want to look closely at how convictions are handled in entry clearance (after HSMP approval) and FLR (two years on, if you plan to remain further), where you will be asked about convictions.

Refer to Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 to ascertain that your conviction would be considered spent; I'm not sure about the different elements of the sentence, whether the driving disqualification is considered spent after a period different from that of the community work and fine (or whether it's all handled together, perhaps considered spent after five years?). Understanding the terms of rehabilitation should both bolster your defence of your own 'good character' and equip you to manage the implications of the situation with confidence.

One of the moderators at one point posted a link to the caseworkers' guidance notes on good character, with respect to naturalisation, I think, but I expect that the same principles apply to entry clearance and FLR.

Forewarned is forearmed; very best wishes.

[SYH]

What I would add to that, is that definitely see if EC could be impacted by this conviction, however I am not sure good character standard as to naturalisation is the most appropriate. I believe the good character standard for naturalisation is mostly concerned about your behaviour while in the UK. It still can give you some guidelines as to how they will interpret the conviction vis a vis to approval of EC

[niw2]

Thank you very much for your assistance. For me, the key thing here appears to be that I am not automatically disqualified simply by having one previous conviction. I expected that it would simply count against me, making the threshold a little higher for me to reach, and this appears to be the case.

Any further comments will be appreciated too, of course.

[boyzzeal]

kk

[SYH]

This seems to be a trend with people with foreign licenses not being able to pay fines because the system can't endorse their license.
It seems to be a loophole and it is unlikely to be on the HO radar. That being said, it doesn't mean you are not supposed to admit to it. And I wonder if you mentionned this on the HSMP application, what are you going to do during renewals and the future such as ILR. In any case, does it ask for driving offences on the EC application?

[boyzzeal]

kk

[SYH]

I am not familiar enough with UK law to know if it is a criminal offence. Personally, I doubt it but you have to call the people who issued the fine or look it up to determin if it is one or not.