Why we built a public conviction database

Court records are public, but they are scattered. A conviction reported one afternoon in one courtroom is, in practice, almost impossible for an ordinary person to find again. We think a community has a right to see what the courts have decided, in one place, in plain terms.

So we are building a public conviction database. You will be able to search by name, area or offence and find people who have been convicted, with the facts drawn from the public court record.

It is bound by the same lines as everything else we do. Every entry comes only after a conviction, never while a case is live and never before a charge. Every entry is checked against the court record before it goes up. It is a record of what the courts have already decided in public, not an accusation of our own.

There is no photo upload and no face search on the public side. You search with words, and you see the court's findings.

If you believe an entry is wrong, out of date, or that something needs correcting or removing, you can tell us and we will check it against the record. We handle this data under UK data-protection law, with a documented basis and a clear route to have an entry reviewed.