MR JUSTICE WARBY Approved Judgment NT1 & NT2 v Google LLC Wales on the one hand and Scotland on the other. For the purposes of this case, it is sufficient to note the following. 17. (1) The sentence imposed on NT1 was one of four years’ imprisonment. Under the law of England & Wales as it stood until 10 March 2014, any sentence of more than 30 months’ imprisonment was excluded altogether from rehabilitation. Amendments made by s 139 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (“LASPO”) enlarged the range of sentences that could become spent, embracing any sentence of 48 months or less. The amendments provided for a sentence of between 30 and 48 months to become spent after 7 years. (2) The sentence imposed on NT2 was one of six months’ imprisonment. Such a sentence was always capable of becoming spent. Until 10 March 2014, the rehabilitation period for such a sentence was 7 years. The amendments introduced by LASPO reduced that period to 2 years. (3) LASPO s 141(2) provided that the 1974 Act applies “as if [these] amendments … had always had effect”. The consequence is that some old convictions, including those of NT1 and NT2, are now to be treated as having become spent before the amendment was made. Section 4 of the 1974 Act is headed “Effect of rehabilitation” and begins as follows:“(1) Subject to sections 7 and 8 below, a person who has become a rehabilitated person for the purposes of this Act in respect of a conviction shall be treated for all purposes in law as a person who has not committed or been charged with or prosecuted for or convicted of or sentenced for the offence or offences which were the subject of that conviction …” The emphasis is mine. It highlights wording of exceptional breadth that might at first sight be thought to provide a complete and ready answer to these claims. But nobody suggests that this is its effect. All parties have treated s 4(1) as embodying a legal policy to which the Court should have regard in resolving the issues before it. The weight to be given to that policy generally, and in this case in particular, is controversial. I shall come to the arguments of the parties and the ICO in these respects. 18. But I should mention at this stage a point made by Mr Tomlinson, which is that evidence to prove his clients’ offending, conviction and sentence is only before the Court by way of exception to a general rule against the admission of such evidence. Section 4(1) of the 1974 Act goes on to set out a conditional prohibition on the admission before a judicial authority of any “evidence … to prove that … [a] person has committed or been charged with or prosecuted for or convicted of or sentenced for any offence which was the subject of a spent conviction” and on any question being asked which cannot be answered without acknowledging or referring to such a conviction. This prohibition is subject to s 7. It does not apply to proceedings in which the person is a party or witness, if he consents to the admission of the evidence (s 7(2) (f)). Nor does it apply to a case in which the Court is satisfied that justice cannot be done except by admitting such evidence (s 7(3)). Mr Tomlinson’s analysis