Normally, an allegation of a crime, or a not guilty verdict on a crime is unlikely to effect the job you do to such dramatic effect. It may make you unsuitable for a job, but unlikely to put lives at risk. We need to have a special law when we are dealing with a "duty of care" type job, such as children, the elderley, handicapped etc. And in this I include anyone associated with an establishment who have a duty of care i.e. caretakers, dinner ladies, lollypop men etc. If you want to work in these industries you have to have a squeaky clean record, including not guilties.
We cannot treat these jobs the same as somebody working in a bank, who may have got off a theft allegation.
The other concern is that many cases in the past have produced not guilty verdicts purely on a technicality, where the police may have filled in the wrong form on a vital piece of evidence, or not had a valid search warrant when uncovering critical evidence. These oversights can lead to evidence being inadmissable. But there needs to be a radical change in the way the police work before these loopholes can be plugged. There should be "police admin" teams who can take the donkey work and form filling away from experienced officers and free up this vital resource.
It seems crazy that officers spend over half their time with mundane paperwork like transcribing their own interview tapes which takes hours as they are not trained typists. It is not surprising that mistakes are made when officers are under such time pressure.
I don't see a civil rights problem with a complete history (including not guilty verdicts) of an individual needing to be documented when applying for certain types of jobs. It only becomes a civil rights issue if it is mandatory across the board.
This is already in place for jobs in government, GCHQ, military etc, e.g. you have to take a drugs test to work at the Esso oil refinery.
There will always be people who are completely innocent but have had a malicious allegation against them which then excludes them from their desired job. Tough! If someone spikes my drink and I get done for drunk driving I still lose my licence, there's no perfect solution. Unfortunately we seem to have lost sight of the purpose of criminal law, and it is used more now to protect the criminal, rather than the victim. This needs to change. I think the bigger picture justifies the odd unfairness. It'll never happen though, they'll **** it up like they always do.
