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Criminal Past Haunts UK Gay Men

  • 15-01-2013 1:11am
    #1
    JupiterKid
    Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 13,105 Mod ✭✭✭✭


    I was reading a post by longstanding UK LGBT rights activist Peter Thatchell where he reports that a number of gay men in England, who were convicted for the victimless crime of "gross indecency" are being required to submit their DNA for a national criminal database, even though their "crimes" no longer exist. It sounds like a total outrage that gay men who were persecuted in their past by homophobic laws are now being treated on a par with murderers, sex offenders and paedophiles.:mad:

    It also makes me wonder if gay men in Ireland who were arrested and convicted for gay sex prior to decriminalisation in 1993 are still stored on a Gardai database of offenders?

    Article here:
    http://www.petertatchellfoundation.org/homophobia/police-demand-dna-samples-gay-men


Comments

  • #2
    periodictable
    Closed Accounts Posts: 931 ✭✭✭periodictable


    Great post!
    I'm sure there's a solution to this, even if it means a trip to the ECHR.


  • #3
    L1011
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 71,186 ✭✭✭✭L1011


    There were minimal convictions here for a huge time prior to 1993 - non-prosecution was used as an excuse during Norris's case - and I don't think we would have batch uploaded stuff to PULSE in quite the same way as the Brits did to the PNC.

    The UK seems to be dithering about whether to deal with 1967-199whatever convictions for cases taken on age grounds, as they had a 21 AOC, then 18, then equalised to 16. These ones could be relatively recent and seen as extremely serious if on a file despite no longer being illegal to do. They've already agreed in principle to allow wiping of the pre67 convictions.


  • #4
    JupiterKid
    Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 13,105 Mod ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    Good news - apparently Manchester Police have issued an apology to a gay man who they demanded DNA from.

    Article here:
    http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2013/01/16/manchester-police-apologise-to-gay-former-soldier-over-dna-sampling/


    But there does seem to still be a lot of work to do to ensure that gay men convicted under archaic former homophobic laws in the UK have any criminal records as a results completely wiped clean.


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