Medical student barred over spent burglary conviction offered second chance

A straight-A student who was told he could not study medicine because of a spent criminal conviction has now been offered an interview at a top medical school.

The University of Manchester's medical school told Majid Ahmed, 18, he would be considered for a place to study there this September after initially rejecting him. 

The teenager, from Bradford, lost an appeal earlier this month against Imperial College London.

He was refused a place at its illustrious medical school after it learned of his past sentence.

Ahmed was convicted of burglary in 2005 at the age of 16 and ordered to serve a four-month referral order for community service.

I grew up in Bradford, in one of the poorest wards in the country, sharing a three-bedroom house with six siblings and going to a predominantly white, failing school. It could have dimmed the brightest of my ambitions: so imagine my delight in achieving the best GCSE examination results in the history of the school and then going on to get four A-levels all at grade A. Most other people of my age would have been overjoyed at receiving such results, and I imagined their parents rewarding them with the latest iPod or a trip around the world. How did I celebrate receiving a set of results that most students would give their right arm for? With despondency and sadness.