The Act Part One – Introductory Section 1 – Purpose of this Act
5.Section 1 sets out that the purpose of the Act is to acknowledge the wrongfulness and discriminatory effect of past convictions for certain historical sexual offences – as defined by section 2 – by pardoning persons who have been convicted of those offences (in Part 2), and also by providing for a process for those convictions to be disregarded (in Part 3).