International News: Repealing Back the Years

United Kingdom: Past convictions for “homosexual activity” to be wiped from records.

STEVE PAFFORD Boris Johnson's UK government has announced it is determined to "right the wrongs of the past" as a long-delayed disregards and pardons scheme is set to be expanded, and would remove all past convictions for consensual homosexual activity between adults.

The Home Office at Westminster in London has stated that any historical conviction that was imposed in Britain purely due to consensual same-sex activity under thankfully now-abolished laws will be included in an attempt at “righting the wrongs of the past”, the Home Secretary has said.

Anyone convicted of a crime under laws that were only repealed under Tony Blair’s Labor government of two decades ago.

Anyone that falls under the remit can appeal to have it removed from their criminal record. Those who have convictions to their names and have passed away or those who may pass away for up to 12 months after the scheme is introduced will get a posthumous pardon.

The Home Secretary, Priti Patel of the Conservative Party, said in an official statement that “It is only right that where offenses have been abolished, convictions for consensual activity between same-sex partners should be disregarded too”, and that “I hope that expanding the pardons 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”.

Rather less good, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts bill included controversial illiberal policies such as anti-protest measures, and increased police stop and search powers. Most alarmingly, it also presented the potential to criminalize traveler communities. The bill, however, is being reassessed as the House of Lords upper chamber rejected the amendments put forth. If reassessed successfully, it would include the aforementioned pardons scheme that would remove past convictions for consensual homosexual activity.

Currently only nine former offenses are included on a list that the Home Office said “largely focused on the repealed offenses of buggery and gross indecency between men”. Gross indecency was the catch-all offense used to prosecute men who were found performing sex acts in places such as parks and public toilets, even if they weren’t observed by other members of the public, and often as a result of entrapment by undercover police officers.

In America, the closest equivalent would have been the “lewd act” that George Michael was found guilty of in a restroom at the Will Rogers Memorial Park in Los Angeles back in 1998.

More so-called “victimless crimes” to be revoked will be added as part of the new amendment proposed in the United Kingdom. This amendment will make it possible for ordinary civilians and military personnel to have their convictions stricken off the record, should these offenses be due to consensual homosexual activity over the age of consent as it currently stands. Those already covered under this scheme will get automatic pardons. Patel thanked her peers, the non-affiliated former Eastenders actor Lord Cashman and the Conservative Lord Lexden for raising the issue. The two of them, along with Professor Paul Johnson, have been working on this inclusion for over half a decade.

The Home Office said that there would be certain conditions in place when removing a conviction. If these conditions are not met, a person would still have the charges on their record. These conditions are that all the parties involved must have been 16 years old or above and that the offenses convicted for should not be an offense today.

Lord Lexden had pointed out that it was an “affront to gay people” that the scheme had not been extended. Eagle-eyed readers may recall that the pardons scheme effectively kicked off with a posthumous pardon for the legendary World War 2 codebreaker, Alan Turing, which I covered in Embrace’s Heroes issue back in 2020.

Cashman added grist to the mill in November 2021 when he complained, quite rightly, that “the disregard and pardon schemes in England and Wales are significantly flawed because they encompass only a small fraction of the laws that, over the decades and centuries, have immiserated the lives of gay and bisexual people”.

Nevertheless, Cashman, Lexden and Prof Paul Johnson welcomed the news and said “For five years, the three of us have been working together on behalf of gay people in the armed forces and in civilian life, who suffered grave injustice because of cruel laws which discriminated against them in the past.”

"We are delighted that our long campaign will at last bring many gay people, both living and deceased, the restitution they deserve."

However, it comes at a tricky time for relations between Johnson’s right-wing Conservative administration and the LGBT community. The long-established Stonewall charity recently announced that “Due to the Prime Minister’s broken promise on protecting trans people from the harms of conversion therapy, we regret that we are withdrawing our support for the UK Government’s Safe to Be Me conference. We will only be able to participate if the Prime Minister reverts to his promise for a trans-inclusive ban on conversion therapy.”

Johnson was said to be unavailable for comment.

STEVE PAFFORD is an English journalist, actor and author of the acclaimed book BowieStyle. Having trained from the floor up in UK music titles Q, MOJO and Record Collector, he’s had his work featured in a wide variety of British, American and Australian media including the BBC, CNN, The Independent and the New York Times. Steve divides his time between Australia and the south of France.