In 2018, Northern Ireland opened a scheme letting men with convictions for old anti-gay offences apply to have them wiped and pardoned. Eight years later, the number of pardons granted is zero.

Three people have applied since the scheme launched, and none met the criteria, PinkNews reports, drawing on a BBC interview with The Rainbow Project. Now the Department of Justice says it’s reviewing what the scheme covers.

How the scheme works

Northern Ireland’s version of what’s often called “Turing’s Law” was approved by the Assembly in 2016 and opened in 2018. According to the NI government’s own guidance:

  • It covers buggery, gross indecency and procuring others to commit homosexual acts.
  • The activity has to have been consensual, with someone aged 17 or over, and not an offence today. Sex in a public toilet doesn’t qualify, because that’s still an offence.
  • A successful application is a “disregard”: the conviction is treated as if it never happened, and it won’t show up on criminal record checks. It also counts as a pardon.
  • People who were convicted and have since died are pardoned automatically.
  • Applying is free and confidential.

Male homosexual acts were criminalised in Northern Ireland until 1982, fifteen years after England and Wales partly decriminalised in 1967. Northern Ireland only changed the law after Belfast campaigner Jeff Dudgeon won his case at the European Court of Human Rights.

Why so few applications?

There’s no firm count of how many people were convicted. PinkNews says hundreds may be eligible. But the people affected are now mostly old men, many of whom have spent decades not talking about it.

Dudgeon, who brought that case, told PinkNews he “always knew that there wouldn’t be very many people eligible for pardons.”

Scott Cuthbertson, chief executive of The Rainbow Project, told the BBC that a lack of pardons “doesn’t mean the scheme hasn’t been a success.” The point, he argued, is the message it sends: that “what happened prior to 1982 was wrong and shouldn’t have happened.” And to anyone worried about “opening up old wounds,” he said “it is worth it.”

That’s not a new pattern. Reporting from 2019, including in Attitude, found the only two men who had applied at that point were refused.

Why a disregard still matters

It’s easy to treat this as symbolic. It isn’t, entirely. Under the scheme, a disregarded conviction doesn’t have to be disclosed on application forms or raised in a court case, and it won’t appear on criminal record checks, according to nidirect.

For a man who has spent decades ticking “yes” on a form for volunteering, a job or a care role, that’s practical. It’s also a chance to have the state’s own records say what everyone now accepts: he did nothing wrong.

You don’t need perfect records to apply, either. The guidance says to give as much detail as you remember so officials can trace the case.

How it compares

England and Wales run a similar scheme. Government figures show 22 applications in the year to March 2026 and 19 convictions found eligible for a disregard, down from 35 the year before, according to government statistics published in May.

Small numbers, but not zero.

What happens next

The NI Department of Justice is reviewing the scheme’s scope and plans to put reform proposals to ministers after the next Assembly elections, PinkNews reports. That gives campaigners a window to argue for wider eligibility so it actually reaches the men it was built for.

It also lands the same week Stonewall’s new UK-wide survey found LGBTQ+ people feel more accepted but more pessimistic than in years. History matters to that feeling. A pardon scheme no one can use is a reminder that saying sorry and making it right aren’t the same thing.

If you, or someone you love, has an old conviction that might qualify, applying costs nothing and is confidential. The Rainbow Project has supported applicants before.