Life

Gay sex convictions under now-abolished laws to be wiped by UK govt

By Conor Clark

4th January 2022

Photo by Nimesh on Unsplash

Priti Patel is set to announce a pardons scheme expansion covering any conviction given to those engaging in consensual homosexual activity.

The Home Secretary is reportedly planning to broaden the government’s Disregards and Pardons scheme, meaning that those who were convicted of a crime under the now-abolished legislation can apply to have it wiped from their criminal record with no requirement to disclose it in the future.

The Home Office said that the nine former offences currently included on the specified list “largely focused on the repealed offences of buggery and gross indecency between men”.

The move is an apparent attempt at “righting the wrongs of the past” when it came to punishing homosexual activity.

Patel said: “It is only right that where offences have been abolished, convictions for consensual activity between same-sex partners should be disregarded too.

“I hope that expanding the pardons and disregards scheme will go some way to righting the wrongs of the past and to reassuring members of the LGBT community that Britain is one of the safest places in the world to call home.”

The criteria of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill will be broadened to include any repealed or abolished civilian or military offence that was brought upon someone purely for or because of consensual gay sexual activity.

In effect, this will see those with a conviction or caution be given an automatic pardon and those who died before its enforcement (or up to 12 months after the changes) will receive one posthumously.

Under current plans from the Home Office, conditions will still need to be met for the disregard and pardon to be approved – including that those involved in the activity must have been aged 16 or over at the time.

Stonewall co-founder and political Lord Michael Cashman celebrated the news but added that there is still “so much more to do.”

“Breaking news,” he wrote on Twitter, “6 years work by Lord Lexden, Prof Paul Johnson of Leeds, & me to widen pardons & disregards for historical homosexual convictions to become law. UK did so much wrong; reputations & lives can finally be uplifted. So much more to do. Enormous thnx to @SusanBaroness.”