And with regard to employment, it is illegal under the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 and the Equalities Act 2010 to exclude someone from a job (or education, housing, etc.) on the basis of their disability. Mental illness is included in this.

There are a certain few professions -- mainly service in the armed forces and spying -- where people who have ever been diagnosed with a serious mental illness can be permanently excluded. Also, if you were an MP at the time of your section Parliament can declare your seat vacated and hold a by-election. I am going to go out on a limb and assume you neither were an MP nor wanted to become a spy.

That does not mean, however, that 'backdoor discrimination' does not occur. It's a **** economy and when there are dozens of applicants for every position, it's not difficult for an employer to come up with another reason not to hire. That's why it was important for me to have the sectioned removed from my CRB.

But I work in a professional job now and am about to enter an even more exclusive profession (the law, can you tell? ) and discrimination hasn't been a huge issue since I had the CRB changed.