Post Court Proceedings
After the criminal court proceedings have ended:
- You must comply with every court order, otherwise you may face worse consequences.
- Your sentence may last many years in community, if you are sentenced to probation, you are required to attend all meetings with your probation officer, counseling they recommend, etc. in order to complete your sentence. If you do not follow through, you can be charged with breaching and a new criminal process will start all over again (consider informing your probation officer of your injury if they do not already know, especially if it impacts your ability to maintain appointments or follow through on tasks).
- You could be ordered to make financial payments as part of your sentence. You should pay those fines with regular payments. The judge will give you a certain time to pay, it can vary from 1 month to multiple years. The fine(s) must be paid off in the time frame the Judge orders (you can apply for an extension if circumstances change after the order is made).
- The Judge can also order you prohibited from doing certain non-criminal things like owning a weapon or driving for 90 days up to a lifetime ban. If a prohibition order is made in your case and you do not comply you risk a new criminal charge and the process starting again. Non-compliance can also result in a longer prohibition order.
Employment and a Criminal Charge
If you are convicted of a crime it can affect your ability to work. Even a discharge or an acquittal can sometimes, under certain conditions, show up on background checks like a vulnerable person check. It can be difficult to have your record cleared and a charge or a conviction may still be noted in a police or border file, even if a discharge or acquitted is noted beside the entry. It is much harder to work to undo a record of a conviction, than it is to fight the conviction in the first place.