The scheme was introduced in Northern Ireland in 2018 following the passage of legislation in the Assembly in 2016 and covers four categories of offences:

• Buggery: Under Article 19 of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2003.
• Gross indecency between men: Under Section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885.
• Procuring others to commit homosexual acts: Under Article 7 of the Homosexual Offences (Northern Ireland) Order 1982.
• Buggery under older legislation: Section 61 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.

Under the scheme anyone cautioned for or convicted of the specified offences can apply to have their convictions disregarded. A disregard means that the offence will be treated as never having happened, will not appear on criminal record checks and will not need to be included in application forms or brought up in court cases.

Anyone who is successful in applying for a disregard will also be pardoned.

Reporting from the BBC, however, indicates that only three people have applied for a disregard since the scheme’s introduction and none of them met the criteria.

Chief executive of the Rainbow Project, Scott Cuthbertson, told the BBC he was not surprised at the low uptake, but “that doesn’t mean the scheme hasn’t been a success”.

“There’s the message it sends that what happened prior to 1982 was wrong and shouldn’t have happened and that the people who were convicted under legislation at that point deserve not to have that stain on their record.”