It's been many, many years since I had to deal with this. Back then, the trick was to ask for a letter confirming the debt judgement as settled and date of settlement.

From there, if judgement was taken in a magistrates court, you might be able to get the judgement rescinded. If the judgement was taken in high court - well, you'd have that letter and a story to tell in mitigation. Sometimes it helped; sometimes not. Generally it meant five years without access to finance.

I don't know how much that scenario might have changed in recent years.