For young people, a criminal record is synonymous with a future without hope. Nowhere is this reality born out more clearly than the case of Bob Ashford, the former director of strategy at the Youth Justice Board, who has had to stand down as Labour's police and crime commissioner candidate for Avon and Somerset because of a minor offence committed 46 years ago. He was 13 at the time and was fined £2 and 10 shillings.

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