Oh don't imagine I'm not sorry but HN is not a church confessional. I'm looking for ideas to move on, not lectures, or tut-tutting, about my poor previous morals.
US doesn't seem to have access to UK criminal records as I've travelled to NY without declaring convictions and been OK. No idea if just lucky or there's no data sharing.
yea, definitely struck me as odd too, most people bullshit a bit on CVs so whether there was more to it I don't know: TBH you don't usually ask people for details of why they're inside - it can get ... problematic.
You'd only be disbarred from being a company director if the court ordered it or if Companies House applied to the court to disbar you. Max 15 years disbarment.
Pointless tech interviews are a well rehearsed topic on HN and I referred to that. I don't mind prepping for interviews but not spending 6 months doing leetcode exercises about weird trees & stuff I'll never implement.
This 100%. Basic literacy & numeracy is stunningly low in UK prisons & improving basic education has been shown to improve reoffending rates greatly, in policy terms it ought to be a no-brainer but as you say the NGOs & charities in this space are starved of cash, mental health & addiction charities would slash offending rates, - but the government throws hundreds of millions of £ at contractors like Serco & G4S who can afford to lobby hard & donate to party funds, but who squander it.
Pragmatically, I'd not be prepared to lie because it is a criminal offence, fraud, and I doubt a court would look kindly on a repeat offence. But I tend to agree: "you gotta do what you gotta do", in my case feed the kids.
Great suggestions & solid advice. Informal networking may work well if intergated with a speaker slots (I'm a decent public speaker) but I'll need to devise a strategy.
Unis are more open to inclusive hiring from what I hear so that may be worth exploring, but they also have safeguarding issues as they have young people there - though as a money launderer not a kiddy-fiddler I'm not sure how worried they be, unless they'd worry about moral corruption!
Yes, penal system rehabilitation projects is good suggestion. People do that, and it may be possible to do a UK cons-to-coders ML project (there was one in the US). I've seen people on HN cast doubts on OS projects as a portfolio approach but it's worth contemplating.