Since our last update, we have had hundreds of police cautions and arrest records deleted from the PNC.

We have now had over 350 arrest records and cautions removed from the PNC, from over a decade of cases.

We have had cautions removed in respect of any conceivable offence you can think off, ranging from low level assaults and drug possession, all the way to arson and sexual assault, and everything in between.

We believe we are the legal practice with the most experience of successfully deleting records from the PNC. Given our years of experience, we are in the best position to advise you on your prospects of successfully having a police caution removed from the PNC.

We are often asked which police forces we have successfully persuaded to removed PNC records. Below is a list of all the forces where we have successfully had records removed:

• The Metropolitan police
• Northumbria Police
• West Yorkshire Police
• British Transport police (BTP)
• Dorset police
• Hampshire police
• Avon and Somerset police
• Dyfed-Powys Police
• Warwickshire police
• Hertfordshire police
• Leicestershire Constabulary
• Devon and Cornwall police
• Cleveland police
• Humberside police
• Norfolk police
• Sussex police
• North Yorkshire police
• Gloucestershire Constabulary
• Durham police
• North Wales police
• Lancashire police
• Derbyshire police
• West Mercia police
• South Yorkshire police
• West Midlands police
• Lincolnshire police
• Bedfordshire police
• Nottinghamshire police
• Thames Valley police
• Staffordshire police
• Cheshire police
• Greater Manchester police
• Lincolnshire police
• Merseyside police
• Essex police
• Wiltshire police
• Surrey police
• Kent police
• Cambridgeshire police
• The City of London police
• Port of Dover Police

Along with successfully persuading police forces to remove PNC records, we also have considerable success of applying for the deletion of overseas convictions from the PNC.

Through our work in this area, ACRO changed their policy with respect to the deletion of overseas records. We noticed that EU regulations were being wrongly implemented by ACRO with respect to criminal records that had been transferred from European countries to the UK PNC. After we appealed to ACRO, pointing out the error, their policy was changed allowing for the deletion of certain European criminal records. Please get in touch if you have a criminal record that was transferred from overseas onto the UK PNC. We may be able to help you have this record removed.

If you are unsure whether your caution will impact your employment, you can try our police caution calculator.

The calculator will tell you how long your caution will be disclosed on a DBS Certificate.

Unless your caution is deleted, it will remain on the PNC until you reach 100 years. This means that even if a caution is not disclosed on a DBS certificate, it can still cause difficulty with respect to travel and immigration.

A caution will be revealed either directly or indirectly on an ACRO Police Certificate; a Police Certificate will typically be requested by an overseas jurisdiction when processing a visa or citizenship application.

Please get in touch today to discuss your case. Our office manager Myriam will be happy to field your initial enquiry, and if she believes we can help, an initial consultation can be arranged with our expert solicitor Matthew Elkins.

During your initial consultation Mr Elkins will be able to provide you with a detailed advice on your prospects of successfully having your caution or arrest record removed, based on his extensive experience that has been built over years, and hundreds of cases.

We charge reasonable fixed fees for all our services.

A police caution is a formal warning that can be given by the police to anyone who has admitted that they are guilty of a crime. Anyone under 18 will be issued a youth caution, rather than an adult caution. The police can issue a simple caution with no additional requirements, or a conditional caution where the police can impose requirements, such as writing a letter of apology or paying a fine.

A police caution is not a criminal conviction, but it can have serious consequences for your future.

• Criminal Record: A caution will be retained on the Police National Computer (PNC) until you reach 100 years of age (unless you get it deleted). The PNC is the database that stores all criminal records in the UK, including police cautions and arrest records.
• Bad Character Evidence: A police caution can be used as evidence of bad character if you are prosecuted for another crime in the future.
• Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS): A caution can prevent you from working. A simple caution will not show on a Basic DBS check, but a conditional caution will show for 3 months on a Basic DBS Certificate. Most cautions will automatically show for 6 years on a Standard or Enhanced DBS check, and then will become “protected” – even after 6 years, the police still retain a discretionary power to disclose facts related to the caution on an Enhanced DBS Certificate. Cautions for specified offences, such as ABH, sexual assault, or child neglect, will show forever on a Standard and an Enhanced DBS check.  For further details on when a police caution will be disclosed, please see our police caution calculator.
• Visas: A police caution may mean that certain countries will deny you a visa, residency or citizenship. As all cautions remain on the PNC until you reach 100 years of age, they can impact travel for the rest of a person’s life. A police caution may cause issues travelling to the United States of America , Canada, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Singapore, China, Australia, New Zealand and other countries.

The process of removing a police caution from the PNC is also known as applying for expungement or deletion. This means that your caution will be erased from the PNC, and you will no longer have to disclose it on job or immigration applications. However, not every caution will be eligible for deletion. You need to meet certain criteria and provide evidence that your caution was given unlawfully or unfairly.

If you have received a police caution, you may want to know how to remove it from the PNC, the database that stores all criminal records in the UK.

For the police to agree to remove a caution there must be compelling reasons. The National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) set out in their Deletion Guidelines ten general grounds for deletion. These grounds are:

1. Unlawfully Taken – If DNA samples or fingerprints were obtained in violation of legal procedures.
2. Mistaken Identity or Unlawful arrest – If the record was created due to incorrect identification, such as where someone has been cleared after participating in an ID parade.
3. No Crime – If an individual was arrested but no offence occurred. This is not the same as proving your innocence, but is where no crime happened in the first place.
4. Malicious or False Allegation – If credible evidence confirms that the allegation was fabricated, deletion may be granted.
5. Proven Alibi – If an individual can provide corroborative evidence of an alibi which excludes them from the case.
6. Incorrect Disposal – If a caution was issued in error, for example where there was no clear and reliable admission to the allegation, then it should be deleted.
7. Suspect status not clear at the time of the arrest – if the police wrongly classified someone as a suspect, where they are in fact the victim or witness.
8. Judicial Outcome – If a court orders record removal.
9. Another person convicted of the offence – If there is no possibility of there being more than one offender, and someone else is convicted, then the record can be deleted.
10. Public Interest – If retaining the record is contrary to the wider public interest. This can include looking at the seriousness of the allegation, the level of culpability, the person’s age, and their personal circumstances, including mental health factors.

One of the most common grounds for removing a police caution is “incorrect disposal”. To establish that the caution was incorrectly given, you must show that the Ministry of Justice Guidance on police cautions was breached. Before a caution can be issued the police must ensure that:

• There is sufficient evidence to prosecute the accused for the offence.
• The accused must admit that they are guilty of the offence.
• The accused understands the significance of the caution and they must also give their informed consent to being cautioned.
• The police must also respect the law and rules related to detention and custody; significant breaches of these rules may make a caution unlawful.

If any of these conditions were not met, then you may be able to argue that your caution was incorrectly issued. Common examples where a caution might be eligible for deletion are listed below.

• You were under 18 years old when you received your caution and you did not have an appropriate adult present.
• You were under the influence of drugs or alcohol when you received your caution, and you did not understand what you were agreeing to.
• You were coerced or pressured into admitting the allegation or accepting your caution by the police or someone else.
• You were seriously mentally unwell at the time of the incident, or when the caution was issued.
• You were not given adequate legal advice before accepting your caution.
• You were not informed of the consequences of accepting your caution, such as how it would affect your future prospects.
• You were wrongly accused of the offence or there was insufficient evidence against you.
• You received your caution for an offence that is no longer considered a crime.

This list is not comprehensive, and your caution may still be eligible for deletion even if your case does not fit into the listed scenarios. For a comprehensive advice on the particular facts of your case, please contact us to arrange a consultation.

When applying for deletion of a police caution some of the things that should be included are:

• Your full name, date of birth, address and ID.
• The date and location of your caution and the offence for which it was given.
• The ground, or grounds, for deletion.
• The reasons why you believe your caution was unlawful or unfair, with supporting evidence such as witness statements, character references, exhibits, medical records and expert reports if appropriate, relevant previous legal judgments, statutory law, and regulations etc.
• An analysis of interview transcripts if you are disputing your admission.
• An analysis of custody CCTV and/or police body worn footage to see if PACE Guidelines have been breached.
• The impact the caution has had on your life, such as how it has affected your career, your family, education, travel, or personal relationships.

If you are unsure what to include in your police caution deletion application, then as experienced and dedicated solicitors, we will be happy to assist you. We know that receiving a police caution can be a very traumatic and emotional experience. Reliving the event can be difficult, and it may be hard for you to gain a genuine perspective on what happened. We will help you take the stress out of the process, and we will give you a fair and well-informed advice, based on our decades of experience, and hundreds of cases.

Once a caution removal application is submitted, how long it takes to receive a decision will depend on the police force concerned. The process can take months and there is no guarantee that your request will be granted.

Typically the application will be sent to ACRO, who will forward the application to the relevant police force. ACRO themselves do not decide cases; they simply facilitate the process.

Some police forces will take 1 or 2 months to decide, but others will take much longer, sometimes up to 18 months.

If the initial decision is negative, you can appeal the decision within the same police force. The appeal decision may take 1 or 2 months, but it can take a further 12 months, and sometimes longer.

Dependant on the facts, an application can be prioritised, but pushing for a decision is not always appropriate. We will be able to advise you whether it is in your best interests to press the police for a quick decision.

If your request is granted, your caution will be deleted from the PNC. If your request is denied, you will receive a letter from the police explaining why they have rejected your application. If you appeal this decision, and your request is again denied, you have the option of taking your case to judicial review before the Administrative Court, or you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

We have successfully had 100s of cautions removed over the years, and we believe we are the leading legal practice in this field. Most often we are able to persuade the police to remove a caution, but if this is not possible, we have the experience to take your case to court. We would only ever advise a client to take a case to court if there are very strong grounds to do so.

The simple answer to this is no. Each police force has their own particular way of reviewing deletion applications, with some police forces being much stricter than others, depending on the facts and circumstances.

There is no official fee for applying for expungement of a police caution; please see here for our detailed article on the costs involved in deleting a police caution.

You may be eligible for legal aid if you cannot afford to pay for legal advice or representation. Legal aid is a government-funded scheme that helps people who have a low income, or who are on benefits, to access legal services. You can find out if you qualify for legal aid here.

Unfortunately, we do not offer legal aid.

If your police caution is successfully removed from the PNC you will have the many benefits of having a clean criminal record. For example having a clean record can:

• Restore your reputation and confidence, as you will no longer have to worry about being judged or discriminated against because of your past mistake.
• Improve your employment prospects, as you will no longer have to disclose your caution to potential employers or face rejection because of it. You will be able to apply for jobs that require a clean criminal record, such as working with children or vulnerable adults, becoming a health care worker, emergency worker, lawyer or a teacher.
• Enhance your educational opportunities, as you will no longer have to disclose your caution to universities or colleges or face rejection because of it. You will be able to apply for courses that require a clean criminal record, such as medicine, nursing, or social work.
• Expand your travel options, as you will no longer have to disclose your caution to immigration authorities or face refusal because of it. You will be able to work and live in countries that have strict visa requirements or criminal record checks, such as the United States, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland, China, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
• Protect your privacy and security, as you will no longer have to worry about your caution being accessed or leaked by unauthorised parties, such as hackers or identity thieves.

We believe that given our extensive experience and knowledge in this field, acquired over many years, we can give our clients the edge in their deletion application. We have had hundreds of police cautions removed over the years; please see here to read our many positive reviews.

If you would like to arrange a consultation, then please contact us. We know that discussing a police caution can be stressful; you will find all of us at Legisia are friendly and approachable, and we will provide you with a sympathetic, confidential, and understanding ear.

If you have received a caution, you may be wondering how to get a police caution removed.

The best way to have a police cautioned removed, is to try to persuade the police that the caution was unlawfully issued.

How to get a police caution removed will depend on the facts of a case. If you have freely admitted an allegation, and the police have abided by the law, then it may be difficult, but not impossible, to get your police caution removed.

Although it may be hard to get a police caution removed where the police have not broken the law, we have had considerable success in removing police cautions in such circumstances.

You may be wondering how much it will cost to remove a police caution, we discuss this in detail in another article here: Police Caution Removal Cost

Generally speaking, you can apply to get your police caution removed yourself, however it is advisable for you to be familiar with the law and police procedures before doing so. If you are unsure about the law, and do not want to deal with the police yourself, we have years of successful experience in the deletion of police cautions and other police records.

If you feel that the police have unfairly given you a police caution, for example because you feel you did not admit the allegation, or you were bullied into accepting the caution, then you may have a good case to argue for the deletion of your caution.

You will appreciate in any legal case, even if you know something to be true, it is also important that you are able to prove your case. If you are wondering what makes a strong case, and how you would be able to prove your case to the police, we can help.

When you apply to the police to remove a police caution, you will need to consider what a judge might think about your case. Although you may have no intention of taking your case to the Administrative Court for judicial review proceedings, you will need to consider what to say to the police in the event your case did go to court. This way you will present your case in a reasonable and legally sound manner, which will maker it harder for the police to ignore. If your application is framed in a way that is aggressive, rude or unreasonable, you are going to be much less likely to find favour with the police, and ultimately the court, if it goes that far.

In applying to remove your police caution, you may not need to issue court proceedings, as the police may agree to the deletion. In all cases it is best to avoid having to take your case to court, and we always aim to avoid court for every client. Court proceedings can be very uncertain and can entail significant costs. Whenever we are asked how we can remove a police caution in a particular case, we first always consider how we can have the caution removed, without having to resort to court.

In rare cases where court is unavoidable, to date we have always won, and managed to get our client’s costs back.

As we have experience of hundreds of police caution removal cases, we will be able to tell you at an early stage if you have a good prospect of success. If we believe you have a good case, we will be able to ensure that you do not make any mistakes in your appeal, to maximise your prospects of success.

Equally, if we assess your case early, and believe you do not have a good prospect of success, we will tell you so that you avoid wasting your valuable time and money. We can then advise you on the best way to manage your life and career going forward, so that your caution will impact you as minimally as possible.

When you get your police caution removed it will mean that it has been deleted from the Police National Computer (PNC). The police may leave an arrest record on the PNC, but typically they will also delete your arrest record. Once deleted you will be “no trace” on the PNC, which will have positive implications for both a DBS certificate, and an ACRO Police Certificate.

If you are unsure on how your caution will impact you, you can check our police caution calculator here: How long does a caution stay on your DBS?

If your caution is removed from the PNC, then there probably will also be locally held police records. Most often these records do not cause issues, but can sometimes cause issues on enhanced DBS checks, depending on the case. You can also apply to have these records deleted/restricted, but the rules and procedures are different to police caution removal. We have significant experience in applying for the deletion of locally held police records, or appealing their disclosure on enhanced DBS certificates.

We have extensive experience in applying for the deletion of police cautions, we believe we are the most experienced and successful practice in this field. We are the only legal practice, headed by a qualified solicitor, that specialises in police records deletion, and Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) appeals.

All cases are conducted on a fixed fee basis; please get in touch if you need expert police caution removal representation.

If you have received a police caution you may be wondering: what is a protected caution?

The best way to explain the difference between when a criminal record becomes “spent”, and when it becomes “protected”, is to look at the different types of background check.

There are three types of DBS certificate, basic, standard, and enhanced.

All employers can ask for a Basic DBS check. It is in relation to a Basic DBS check that it matters whether your record is “spent” or “unspent” according to the Rehabilitation of Criminal Offenders Act 1974.

All cautions are immediately “spent” for the purposes of a basic DBS check as soon as they are issued, no matter the type of offence, or when the caution was issued.

The only exception to this is in relation to a conditional caution. For a conditional caution it will become spent as soon as the conditions expire, up to a maximum of three months.

If your employer is asking you to apply for a standard or enhanced DBS certificate, this means they are allowed to ask an “exempted question”. This basically means that they are allowed to ask you about spent criminal records, but only to the extent that they are not “protected”.

The typical question you will be asked is the following:

An adult caution will become “protected” if it was issued six or more years ago, unless it is for an offence that is on the specified offences list.

All youth cautions (both simple and conditional) will be protected immediately.

If an adult caution is for an offence that appears on the specified offences list, your caution will be indefinitely disclosable on both a standard and an enhanced DBS certificate. Typical examples of specified offences cautions are ABH, affray, child cruelty/neglect, possession of indecent images of children or sexual assault.

For further details on when a caution will be disclosed, you can use our: police caution calculator.

Once a caution is protected the police will still retain it on the Police National Computer (PNC) until you reach 100 years of age.

For youth cautions they will not be automatically disclosable on any level of DBS certificate, but may be revealed as “relevant information” on an enhanced DBS certificate.

For adult cautions, after six years, a caution will be “protected” and will not be revealed on a standard DBS check, but might continue to be revealed on an enhanced DBS check as “relevant information”.

In order for the police to reveal a protected caution, they would have to justify that it was necessary, reasonable, and proportionate to disclose the information. If you are arrested a second time, or receive a second caution, then it will make it much more likely that a protected caution will be revealed on an enhanced DBS certificate.

A protected caution can also continue to cause problems with respect to visas and citizenship overseas. A caution will be revealed directly on an ACRO Police Certificate for either 5  or 10 years depending on the offence. Once the time period has elapsed, the caution will become “stepped down”. Once it is stepped down it will be indirectly revealed via a “no live trace” disclosure.

For anyone who has never been cautioned or convicted, their Police Certificate will simply state “no trace”. If you provide a “no live trace” certificate to a foreign embassy, most often they will then enquire into the details of your criminal record. Certain countries, notably the United States and China, may block a Visa or citizenship application based on a police caution, depending on the offence, and when the caution was issued.

So if you have now answered the question, what is a protected caution, and you realise your caution is not protected, then please get in touch.

We have years of experience in applying for the removal of police records, including hundreds of successful police caution removal cases.

We understand the significant impact a low-level criminal allegation can have on someone’s career, and we deal with every case sensitively and compassionately.

We charge reasonable fixed fees for our services. Please contact us to arrange a fixed fee initial consultation where we will be able to provide you an honest and frank opinion on your prospects of successfully having your police caution removed.

If you have received a police caution, you may be asking; can I get a caution removed from my record?

The simple answer to this question is that you can get a caution removed from the Police National Computer (PNC).

It will depend on a number of factors whether, in your circumstances, you will be able to get your police caution removed from your record.

The first question you will need to ask yourself is, do I actually have a police caution. Sometimes the police may simply warn someone they suspect of committing a crime, without giving then a formal caution.

A police caution is typically (although not always) issued at a police station. There are also formal procedures that you would need to go through. You should have been offered access to a lawyer, and been provided detailed warnings about the caution. Furthermore you should have clearly admitted to the allegation. So typically, you would know whether you have received a caution or not.

The police can sometimes issue cautions in other locations, outside of the police station, such as someone’s home, but this tended to happen more in the past. Even if a caution is issued outside of a police station, the same formal procedures should be followed by the police.

When issued with a  caution, the police will issue a document, typically titled “simple police caution” or “conditional caution” and it will have your details, the offence details, and there will usually be a warning sheet attached, which details all the implications about the caution.

If you are unsure if you have a caution or not, you can check the PNC by running this check here:  PNC Check

This check will detail all convictions, cautions and arrests held against your name. If your records have been entered onto the PNC, they will be retained until you reach 100 years of age, unless deleted.

If you have checked the PNC and you have a caution, or you are sure you received the caution without checking the PNC (we have only seen one occasion, out of hundreds, where a caution was erroneously not added to the PNC) you can then investigate whether you can get your caution removed from your record.

There are a number of grounds detailed by the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) for when a PNC record can be deleted. These include grounds such as where you can show the case was based on a mistaken identity, a malicious or false allegation, where no crime occurred, where the police incorrectly disposed of your case, and other grounds.

These deletion grounds are reflective of statutory and case law that has been promulgated over the years, so that all cases will generally fall into one of the NPCC’s grounds for record deletion.

If the police have fundamentally breached the police caution procedure, then you will have a good case to have your caution removed.

Also, dependant on the facts and circumstances, the police may be willing to reconsider your case, even where the police can not be said to have broken the rules. It will depend on your circumstances and how the facts and law are presented.

As with any legal case, you can present your case yourself to the police, but you can also instruct a lawyer to assist you with your application. We have many years of experience in dealing with police record deletion, including successfully applying for deletion of 100s of police cautions, with police forces across England and Wales.

When preparing a legal submission, you will also need to carefully consider what would happen if the police do not agree to delete your police caution. You will need to frame your application bearing in mind how the court may view you case, and taking into consideration the evidential issues that may arise further down the line.

When we prepare a deletion application, we always prepare thinking about how a High Court judge may perceive a case during judicial review proceedings. This way we are able to determine at an early stage whether your case has a good prospect of success.

If we feel, based on our experience and detailed knowledge of the law, that a judge is likely to side with you, then we will have more confidence in advising you that your case has a good prospect of success.

Our aim is always to avoid taking a case to court, but as we always prepare for that eventuality, we are able to advise clients at an early stage if they have a reasonable prospect of success. If we proceed to preparing a deletion application, we can then tip the odds of success in your favour, without the need for court.

So, to answer the question, can I get a caution removed from my record? We can say that you definitely can get a caution removed from your record, we have successfully applied to delete 100s of cautions and arrest records from the PNC over the years. It will however all depend on the facts of your case, and how these facts are presented to the police.

Due to our dedicated experience in this field, where we have devoted thousands of hours representing clients and researching the law, we believe we  give our clients the required edge to win a case, and have their caution deleted.

We believe personally in the work we do, as we know the huge impact a caution, or other police record can have on good people’s careers and lives, and we always fight for our clients to achieve a clear record.

If you would like to arrange an initial consultation to discuss police caution deletion, then please get in touch.

Police Caution Removal Cost – what are the costs to have your police caution removed? 

The short answer is that it would cost nothing if you apply to the police for the deletion of your police caution yourself.

You can apply to the police to ask them to remove your caution from the Police National Computer (PNC). If the police agree to the removal of your police caution, then that will be the end of the matter.

If the police do not agree to the deletion of your caution, then you have the option of doing nothing (in which case your police caution will remain on the PNC) or you can file for Judicial Review proceedings before the High Court.

You can lodge Judicial Review proceedings yourself, and this would cost you nothing other than the Courts fees and associated  costs (printing and/or expert witnesses). If however you did lose your case, the police can ask for the Court to order you to pay some, or all, of their costs.Therefore if you did take your case yourself, even though you would not have the cost (nor the benefit) of a lawyer, your police caution removal costs could still end up being fairly significant.

It therefore really depends on how comfortable you are with the law, and being able to present your case to the police with an objective frame of mind. It is possible for a non legally trained person to present a convincing case for deletion to the police. It can however sometimes be difficult, especially where someone feels aggrieved about their case, to obtain the correct impartial perspective; namely it is sometimes difficult to see the full picture when you are inside the frame.

You may have heard of the old adage (no doubt invented by a lawyer) that a person who acts as his own lawyer, has a fool for a client. Whilst this is not true in all cases, and undoubtedly many people would do a very good job of representing themselves, but even the most intelligent of people will lack one important critical aspect in preparing their case – experience.

Through the preparation of hundreds of deletion cases we are well placed to able to determine whether a case is likely to succeed or not.

This is not just based on our extensive knowledge of the law, but also based on our knowledge of particular police forces and how they have reacted in the past.

You may be surprised to learn that each police force, in a manner of speaking, has their own particular character and way of handling deletion requests. Some police forces will interpret the deletion rules, and Data Protection Act, very narrowly, whilst other police forces adopt a much more progressive approach to the rules.  For example, some police forces are much more likely to agree to the deletion of a certain caution than others – we have developed this experience and knowledge by applying for the deletion of many records over the years.

We believe we are the legal practice with the most experience of police records deletion in the country – for example we recently had 5 separate police cautions removed in one day, and also two enhanced DBS certificates successfully appealed the same day.

It is due to this extensive knowledge and experience that we have become known as the go-to lawyers for any criminal record or DBS issue.

We also have developed a keen eye for what not to say to the police; part of our value added to any case is making sure our clients do not inadvertently present evidence that harms their application.

A police caution deletion application is technically free (unless you need to go to Court), but then everyone is free to represent themselves in any legal proceedings – from the most minor traffic incident, all the way to murder.

In representing yourself, you may be able to come to understand the law fully, perhaps even better than your lawyer in some cases, but what you will lack is the valuable experience that comes from real world legal practice.

In a caution deletion case if you do choose to avoid paying legal costs, and the police provide you with a negative decision, this can making it harder to undo if you have provided the police with evidence that has locked you into an unhelpful line of defence, or attack.

Also if you do get a final rejection letter from the police, you will then have a relatively limited time frame (3 months) to get a lawyer on board. In our opinion it is harder to pick up a case after a client has already had a refusal, although we have nevertheless had a number of cases where we have been able to turn a refusal into a successful deletion.

It is also important to bear in mind that in some cases a caution is very unlikely to be deleted, and as experienced police caution deletion lawyers we will be able to advise you on your prospects of success. We can provide you an initial consultation where we will tell you whether it is worth your time and money to pursue your case.

Another common problem we have noticed is that clients often want to raise as many points as possible, hoping that at least one of them will hit the target. In our experience this just makes for a confused application, and will rapidly lose the interest of the police. If you have ever been to witness a busy day at court where a judge has a long list of cases to deal with, you may understand this point. A time pressed judge will have very little patience for any advocate who prevaricates, and makes scattergun representations. The same is true with a deletion application; representations need to be concise, relevant, legally sound, factually accurate, and consistent.

Although we believe it is best that you instruct an experienced police caution deletion solicitor, we understand that police caution removal costs can be an issue.

If you do want someone to represent you, we offer reasonable fixed fees, namely you will not be billed on an hourly basis – you will know all our police caution removal costs up front, and we will not go over this limit.

Some more complex cases may require a slightly higher fixed fee, whereas for more straightforward cases the police caution removal costs will be lower.

In all cases we offer a fixed fee initial consultation where you will get expert legal advice (and a sympathetic ear) followed up by a detailed written advice with clearly explained costs.

If you would like to set up an initial consultation, and to discuss our costs for police caution removal, then please get in touch.