Can anyone help regarding travelling on an esta? My 18 year old son is planning to travel to New York with college for a 4 night trip. We will need to apply for an esta for him but I’m unsure how to answer the question regarding criminal convictions etc.
Last year (when he was 17) he attended a football match with friends. On leaving the ground, there was a pile of broken chairs, he stupidly picked up a small piece of the scrap chairs and left the ground. After he left the stadium, he realised that it could look like he had taken he scrap as a weapon and went to a nearby police officer to hand it to him. The police officer explained it was a silly thing to do & took his name & address. A few weeks later he got invited to our local police station for a voluntary interview. They explained that the football club didn’t want to take it any further and they asked my son to write a letter of apology. He also made a contribution to a charity that the football club supported (the police didn’t ask him to do this). The officers that interviewed him said they could tell my son was a nice lad & they thought the original officer was being extremely harsh. We were told that it was nothing to worry about, it was recorded as theft, he wont have a criminal record but something would be filed at a local police station. He wasn’t arrested, he was voluntarily interviewed and he does not have a criminal record. I’ve read on the internet that he might have had a community resolution - will we be ok clicking no to the criminal record question or does he need to apply to the embassy for a visa? Sorry for the long post x
[ Edit: Edited on 6 Dec 2024, 17:02 GMT by Lovinglife48 ]