[janlin1999]

> My personal viewpoint on this is that - depending on the range of offences committed - there's some professions / occupations that should get closed off for a good while.

I agree, but I also think this is also a judgment call (e.g. how long is a "good while?"). Should a company be vulnerable to a billion dollar liability because of a judgment call that didn't work out? Hiring anyone is a judgment call. Going down this path, for example, one could imagine a world in which society pressures companies to screen for mental health, and to not hire people who have such issues (e.g. "Who knows? they might go and kill someone!").

> You don't want your fraud-convicted individual working in finance or accounts, nor someone convicted of theft, assault, etc. working in people's homes, particularly potentially vulnerable individuals.

Keep in mind that Holden's criminal background check came back clean (in particular, no legal record of assault), and verifying employment might have turned up "forgery, falsifying documents and harassment of fellow employees." Even believing the former employers (since these charges were not proven in court), I personally would not have expected someone like that to have murdered someone else. Hence, from the limited information that I know of the case right now, Charter seems to me to have made a reasonable decision to hire Holden (not one that I would have made myself, but within some realm of reasonableness).