Who Unlock is#
Unlock is a national, independent charity founded by a group of former prisoners. It supports and speaks up for people facing stigma and discrimination because of a criminal record, with a focus on the long-term effect of a record on people and their families. It is still a separate charity with its own register entry. Alongside its advice pages it runs a helpline, an online forum and a disclosure calculator that works out whether a conviction is spent.
Using the helpline#
The helpline page says it helps only people based in England and Wales, and asks you to search the information pages first because the line is busy. It is open on weekday working hours, and outside them you can write by email, online form, text, WhatsApp or letter; Unlock aims to reply within five working days. It prefers to hear from the person directly, and the page explains how to call without your number being shown.
What Unlock says about changing your name#
Unlock's page is direct about the purpose. People with convictions usually change their name for a fresh start, often because a conviction can be found online for years. A new name, it says, is no way to escape formal disclosure on a criminal record check; what it can help with is informal disclosure, such as a colleague searching your name or a news story that a website will not take down.
On the rules, it says:
- Nothing stops you. A conviction does not prevent a change of name, and you need no legal procedure if you do not intend to deceive anyone.
- Some people must tell someone. With a prosecution pending, you must tell the police. On licence or probation, you must tell your probation officer. If you are on the sex offenders register, you must tell the police within three days, and failing to do so may lead to a conviction.
- Check first with your employer, any professional body you belong to, and, if you are a foreign national, your country of nationality.
- Evidence. A letter from a responsible person, a newspaper notice, a statutory declaration or a deed poll can all show the change, though a letter alone will not do for a passport. You can write your own deed poll, signed before an independent witness.
It describes enrolment as a public record published in the London or Belfast Gazette, and gives the cost of preparing and enrolling a deed poll as £102, with a postal address at the Royal Courts of Justice.
What has changed since Unlock's page was written?#
GOV.UK now lists the enrolment fee as £53.05 and describes an online application with the Deed Poll Office, with the forms sent to you by email. For an unenrolled deed poll, GOV.UK's wording asks for two witnesses aged 18 or over. GOV.UK also widens the reporting duty: a registered sex, violent or terrorist offender must tell the police within three days, at their prescribed police station, and GOV.UK's own deed wording includes a line confirming the police have been told where that applies.
None of this changes a record: a DBS check application asks for every name you have used.
More on records and names#
- Can I change my name if I have a criminal record?: the police, licence and DBS rules in one place.
- Who can see my former name?: what an unenrolled deed poll keeps private, and what it does not.
- Statutory declaration of name change: the route Unlock mentions, and who accepts it.
- Charities for people with a criminal record.
This page describes what Unlock publishes on its own website, read on 26 October 2026. Unlock has not reviewed it, and listing a charity here does not mean it recommends this handbook or any deed poll service.
