If you have ever wondered, can you get rid of a police caution? The simple answer to this question is, yes.

Whether you can get rid of your caution in your circumstances, will depend on a number of factors.

Getting rid of certain police cautions can be more challenging than others.

Where the caution is for a more serious offence, and where the evidence is very compelling, it may make getting rid of your police caution more difficult, but it may not be impossible.

It is possible to apply to the police yourself to have a police caution removed, however this is the case with any criminal matter. You can represent yourself in any allegation, from the most serious to the most minor. If you do not want to represent yourself, you can instruct a lawyer to assist you. We are dedicated expert police caution removal lawyers, with years of experience with success in hundreds of cases.

If you have received a police caution it will be retained on the Police National Computer (PNC) until you reach 100 years of age.

Your caution will be disclosed according to different time periods, the type of offence, and the type of background check you are applying for. Please see our police caution calculator for details of how and when your caution will be revealed.

People often wrongly believe (due to faulty advice given to them by their duty solicitor/the police) that their police caution will be removed after five years, for discussion on this topic please visit here: Can a caution be removed after 5 years?

Getting rid of a police caution will mean that it will be removed from the Police National Computer. This will mean that your caution will be completely removed from the PNC, and will know longer automatically be revealed on a DBS certificate, or an ACRO police certificate. The police do also separately retain local/PND records. For information on local/PND records, please visit here:

Clients often instruct us to get rid of their police caution from the PNC, as it is having a significant impact on their employment, or ability to move overseas.

If you have a police caution, you may find that it is causing you difficulties obtaining a visa, or overseas citizenship. Countries such as the United States and China are very strict with respect to any previous criminal record. Cautions for certain offences, such as possession of drugs or violent/sexual offences, will make it particularly difficult for you to obtain a Visa or citizenship.

Whilst you have a police caution, it will be revealed directly on an ACRO Police Certificate for between five or 10 years, depending on the offence. After the time period has elapsed, your caution will become “stepped down”, but it will continue to be indirectly revealed via a “no live trace” disclosure. For someone who has never received a caution or conviction, there police certificate will simply state “no trace”.

Many countries once they see a “no live trace disclosure” on an ACRO Police Certificate, will then enquire into the full details of that person’s criminal record.

If your caution is deleted, your police certificate will state “no trace”.

We are a legal practice dedicated to helping people with previous criminal records, and have successfully challenged the retention of police cautions in hundreds of cases.

The majority of our clients are highly qualified, and often leading professionals, where the impact of a police caution is often devastating to their career. We have successfully helped many clients put minor incidents behind them, and move on successfully with the rest of their lives.

Many of our clients may also have had minor difficulties in their youth/younger years, but have gone on to lead successful and highly productive lives. Often these clients feel unfairly chained to their past by their previous record.

We know that minor police records can have a major impact on people’s lives, we therefore do all we can to ensure you get the clear record that you deserve.

If you would like expert advice on getting rid of your police caution, from the leading lawyer in this field, 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.