On a Monday in early July, Goldman Sachs’ London private wealth team was given some unexpected news from the bank’s management. A colleague, who some of them had worked with for years, would not be coming into the office any more, they were told. He had been sent to prison.
Ronan O’Grady, 33, was sentenced to two years in prison by Dublin’s Central Criminal Court in June after pleading guilty to eight counts of sexual assault in February. In the interim, and since his arrest two years earlier, O’Grady had continued working at Goldman, sitting and socialising with colleagues as normal.
Shortly before his sentencing, O’Grady informed the bank that he had been convicted of the crimes, which took place between 2004 and 2008 when he was under 18. Irish newspaper reports of his conviction had started to do the rounds among colleagues in the days following his imprisonment. His co-workers were left shell-shocked.
The case raises questions about whose responsibility it is to inform a person’s employer when someone is arrested, charged or convicted of a crime and what, if anything, employers can do to police such behaviour. In the UK, the fact of an individual being charged with an offence is typically public information, as is a conviction. In Ireland, too, convictions are largely a matter of public record.
O’Grady’s conviction came after Irish broadcaster RTÉ also found out this year that one of its studio managers had continued to work at the company five months after pleading guilty to possession of child pornography.
RTÉ said the broadcaster was “completely unaware” of the employee’s conviction and had received no communication from the police about it. Details of the O’Grady case are based on interviews with multiple people involved in the situation who did not want to be identified due to the sensitivities of the case. A lawyer for O’Grady declined to comment on behalf of him and his family.
According to lawyers, if the alleged criminality is unrelated to a person’s work there is very little that law enforcement can do without potentially breaching privacy laws.
“Law enforcement do not routinely inform employers about suspects in investigations,” said Jessica Parker, a criminal defence lawyer at Corker Binning. “If a police officer told an employer […] it could cause real prejudice to their employment in circumstances where the facts are uncertain. It would amount to a serious interference with a suspect’s right to privacy.”
“After an investigation and post-conviction, whose role should it be to inform an employer: the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the probation service? In some professions the onus is on the employee,” Parker added.
Ireland’s Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, which brought the charges against both the Goldman and RTÉ defendants, declined to comment on individual cases but said it “does not and cannot inform an employer of an accused facing trial, as every accused is entitled to the constitutional protection of the presumption of innocence”.
Still, the fact that both men remained employed post-conviction highlights the difficulties employers face in monitoring such situations. While law enforcement in the UK has access to the Police National Computer, which contains records of convictions and other run-ins with the law, it is not readily accessible to companies. Employers largely have to rely on trust.
“The best employers can do is impose an express obligation (for example, in the employment contract) on individual employees to notify [them] of any criminal proceedings and other wrongdoing,” said Philippa O’Malley, an employment lawyer at Slaughter and May. “Unfortunately, this can be of limited benefit if an employee ignores the obligation.”
Even when an employee does disclose an arrest it can be difficult for an employer to navigate without the full facts. The BBC has said it will attempt to claw back hundreds of thousands of pounds from convicted broadcast star Huw Edwards, who was arrested in November and paid until he quit in April.
The BBC board said in a statement this month that had Edwards been up front about the facts of his arrest, “we would never have continued to pay him public money”. Lawyers for Edwards did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At Goldman, employees are obliged to inform the bank of any arrests or charges as part of its employment policies, which staff must attest to annually, according to a person with knowledge of the bank’s procedures.
Goldman said in a statement that the bank was “shocked to learn of Mr O’Grady’s appalling past offences” and that “Mr. O’Grady concealed these criminal proceedings from us until June 2024, despite being required to disclose them.”
“His employment ended once we became aware. Our thoughts are with the victim,” the bank added.
The reliance on employee integrity however, means colleagues can also feel let down by an employer, particularly if the crimes relate to something as sensitive as sex offences.
O’Grady was convicted of sexually abusing a relative when she was aged six to nine and he was between 13 and 17.
“Clearly, organisations have a duty to their other staff to protect them from working alongside someone who has done something objectionable,” said Michael Burd, an employment lawyer at Lewis Silkin. “However, it is a major challenge to police this, particularly if something occurs during the employment that is not widely publicised.”
For O’Grady, who had been preparing to take the case to trial, the situation began to unravel when he decided to plead guilty in February. At that hearing the judge asked him if his work was aware of the situation and he indicated that they were not, according to a person present in court.
His lawyers also asked the court if he could attend his sentencing remotely, suggesting O’Grady was hopeful he would avoid prison.
During his sentencing, O’Grady cited the fact that he had lost his job as mitigation. While Mr Justice Paul McDermott reduced the sentence to take into account his lack of previous convictions and plea, he said that if he had been judging O’Grady as an adult he would have set a headline sentence of eight years.
“There will be a number of people across the City who have been arrested in domestic situations unrelated to their work,” said Parker. “And their employers will never know.”
Additional reporting by Ortenca Aliaj in London
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