Turing’s Law would allow family and friends to apply for gross indecency convictions to be quashed

Ed Miliband has said a future Labour government would introduce a “Turing’s law”, offering posthumous pardons for gay men convicted under historical indecency laws.

Labour said the legislation would allow the men’s family and friends to apply to the Home Office to quash convictions under the “gross indecency” law for consensual same-sex relationships.

The law will be named after Alan Turing – the Enigma code-breaker who was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 with a 19-year-old man and who received a posthumous royal pardon.

“What was right for Alan Turing’s family should be right for other families as well,” said the opposition leader. “The next Labour government will extend the right individuals already have to overturn convictions that society now see as grossly unfair to the relatives of those convicted who have passed away.”



Turing, whose work cracking German military codes was vital to the British second world war effort against Nazi Germany, was chemically castrated and two years later died from cyanide poisoning in an apparent suicide.

He was given a posthumous royal pardon in 2013 and campaigners have been pressing the coalition government to pardon all men convicted under the outdated law. Last month, Turing’s great-nephew, Nevil Hunt, his great-niece, Rachel Barnes, and her son, Thomas, handed over a petition, which attracted almost 500,000 signatures, to 10 Downing Street calling for such a pardon.



The Protection of Freedom Act (2012) provides for individuals still alive to apply to the Home Office to have their convictions for homosexual acts disregarded. But no such redress is available for the family and friends of people who died before the law changed.

Benedict Cumberbatch, who played Turing in the 2014 film The Imitation Game, is backing the campaign started by Turing’s family to pardon the 49,000 men who were prosecuted for being gay.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing in The Imitation Game. The actor is backing the Turing family’s campaign. Photograph: Black Bear Pictures/Allstar

It emerged last week that the campaign is being delayed amid concerns in Whitehall that a small number of paedophiles could be included.



Campaigners who had hoped that the royal pardon for Turing would be extended across have been dismayed by a warning from Whitehall officials that a blanket pardon could benefit gay men who had sex with a minor. Officials have said that there may be no record of whether a minor was involved in a pre-1967 prosecution because homosexuality was illegal regardless of age. Homosexuality was initially decriminalised in 1967 for consenting adults aged 21 and over. The age of consent was eventually equalised in Britain in 2001.

Campaigners believe that the objections about benefiting paedophiles could be overcome by introducing two amendments to the relevant legislation to make clear that the men would have acted wholly lawfully under today’s law. The amendments would say that the sex took place between men aged over 16 and that they were both consenting adults.

Labour said the next Labour government would review how the Protection of Freedom Act could be extended to cover the deceased as well as those still alive – allowing applications on a case-by-case basis. This would allow the family and friends of people convicted of historical offences that would no longer be considered criminal to have their conviction removed.

Gordon Brown made a public apology in 2009 for the treatment of Alan Turing while he was prime minister.

