Any convictions that were imposed on someone simply because of consensual homosexual activity under the now abolished laws will be included in a plan aimed at “correcting the mistakes of the past”, the UK Home Secretary announced.
Priti Patel said more people would have convictions for same-sex sexual activity expunged from their records as it sought to expand the government’s clemency and pardon scheme of a limited set of laws.
Currently, only nine previous offenses are included in a specific list that, according to the Home Office, “focused largely on the repealed offenses of sodomy and gross indecency between men.”
If someone has been convicted of a crime under these now-dismissed laws, they can request that it be ignored, expunged, and not required to be disclosed.
But an amendment to the Police, Crimes, Sentencing and Courts bill will broaden the criteria to include any repealed or abolished civil or military offenses that have been imposed on someone simply for, or because of, consensual same-sex sexual activity.
All those whose warnings and convictions are disregarded under the plan will also receive an automatic reprieve, and anyone who died before the changes took place, or up to 12 months after, will be posthumously pardoned.
Patel said: “It is only fair that when crimes are abolished, convictions for consensual activity between same-sex couples are also ignored.
“I hope that expanding the pardons and snubs scheme will help correct past mistakes and reassure members of the LGBT community that Britain is one of the safest places in the world to call home.”
He thanked Lord Cashman and Lord Lexden for raising the issue.
Lord Lexden, a conservative peer, said earlier this year that it was “an affront to homosexuals” that the plan had not been extended.
And his unaffiliated colleague Cashman said in November: “The clemency and clemency schemes in England and Wales are significantly flawed because they encompass only a small fraction of the laws that, for decades and centuries, have impoverished the lives of gay and bisexual people.” .
At the time, he highlighted how “the crime of solicitation by men, which was used to catch gay and bisexual men, sometimes for doing nothing more than chatting with another adult man” would not have been included in the original scheme.
In a statement, colleagues and Professor Paul Johnson, who had also worked on the campaign, welcomed the news.
They said: “For five years, the three of us have been working together on behalf of homosexuals in the military and in civilian life, who suffered grave injustice due to the cruel laws that discriminated against them in the past.
“Now that parliament has repealed those laws, it has a duty to clean up the terrible stains they have placed, quite wrongly, on the reputations of countless gay people over the centuries.
“The existing legal arrangements to do this are too strict. Many gay people who were victims of past injustices are excluded from them. This is particularly true of members of our military, courageous people whose careers in the service of our country were suddenly destroyed.
“We have been lobbying the government since 2016 to expand clemency and clemency schemes through which people’s reputations can be fully restored. The government has now committed to submitting amendments to the legislation that is currently before the Lords. It has done so in close consultation with us. In a matter of weeks, legislation will be enacted that will allow thousands of seriously harmed gay people to clear their records.
“We are delighted that our long campaign will finally bring many gay people, both living and deceased, the restitution they deserve.”
The Home Office said conditions for a disregard and pardon to be granted, including that anyone else involved must have been 16 years or older and that sexual activity must not constitute a crime today.
www.theguardian.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism