Can a criminal record be cleared in Australia?

We are often asked if it is possible for someone’s criminal record to be cleared, expunged or deleted from all records.

Unfortunately, to the surprise of many people, there is always a permanent record that is maintained by the police and the courts of all criminal records. However, in South Australia under the Spent Convictions Act 2009 and the Spent Convictions Regulation 2011, some criminal offences which are classed as “Spent Convictions” will not appear on a police record check and do not have to be disclosed to anybody. If someone asks about a Spent Conviction, a person is empowered at law to deny its occurrence. However, not all convictions can be Spent. For example, if an adult commits a crime and is sentenced to more than 12 months’ imprisonment, their criminal record can never be cleared as the conviction will never be considered Spent.

Also, if a person commits a designated sex related offence, that criminal record will never be cleared. Usually, a person’s conviction will be considered Spent if it is a minor offence for which a term of imprisonment of less than 12 months imprisonment has been sentenced and more than 10 years has passed since the occurrence of the offence. If a person commits a crime within that 10-year period, then the 10-year period for the conviction to be Spent will restart and the criminal record will still appear on police checks until the 10-year period has lapsed.

It is also an offence under the Spent Convictions Act for a person who has access to your criminal record, to disclose the record of an offence to anybody if it is considered Spent under the Act. Significant penalties will apply for those people.

In some situations there are some organisations that will always have access to a criminal record no matter how minor. The exemptions to the Spent Convictions Act are many. For example, if a job involves the care of vulnerable person or requires a character test, then organisations needing to access those records for those purposes are allowed to do so.