Employers are making illegal criminal candidate record checks on spent convictions that should not be disclosed.

Certain jobs such as work with children or vulnerable adults are eligible for Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks.

However, BBC Radio 4's Face the Facts programme has found requests to CRB for jobs such as train drivers, gardeners and bricklayers.

Under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, non-custodial offences and those that carry a prison sentence of less than 30 months become spent after set periods of time free from any further convictions meaning that after the rehabilitation period has passed, reformed offenders are not obliged to disclose those spent convictions when applying for most types of jobs.