Alan Turing

[mushroom25]

The bill to effect a statutory pardon for Alan Turing is progressing - http://services.parliament.uk/bills/2013-14/alanturingstatutorypardon.html
- it has cross party support, and the government will not oppose it.

Alan Turing was convicted under section 11 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885; but then, so were around 49,000 other gay men to 1967, including Oscar Wilde. If the pardon is being enacted now because times are more enlightened and the 1885 act is seen as unjust, why no pardon for Oscar Wilde, or indeed the other 49000?

Indeed, why no pardon for all "victims" of past unjust legislation?

[Sharingan]

Well quite. I would be a nice touch to manage to inclue pardons for those men, however a fair few of them might still be alive which might then pave the way for compensation claims, but in principle yes I think they should all be pardoned.
It does however open a big can of worms regarding pardoning lost of historical people who fell foul of other legislation we would consider unjust and inhuman now.

[Sharingan]

Oh just want to add I'm very pleased that alan Turing is being pardoned:)

[Sqad]

Alan Turing was convicted of a criminal act in the 1940,s .
I cannot see that because we have "become enlightened" it makes it an unsafe or unreasonable procedure.

We either leave well alone for everybody convicted or pardon everybody as suggested by mushroom.

To me it seems illogical to single out one person because of his fame and from a pragmatic view, what difference does it make to the man himself?

[jno]

perhaps we should find the descendants of all those convicts shipped to Australia for stealing a handkerchief, and offer them the right to live in Britaiin. I'm sure they'd jump at the chance.

[Sqad]

jno...LOL

[Old_Geezer]

If one thinks it is worth pardoning the dead at all, because views on right & wrong have changed over the years, then sure, it seems a blanket pardon would be more appropriate, no names specified maybe. I think the reason for pardoning Alan is more to do with the ability to rally support for one well known individual.

[emmie]

i am in two minds over this, what difference in effect would it make, perhaps to any living relatives, but what about all the others who were imprisoned or subjected to prison and worse..

[pixie373]

You have to live by the Law at the time. In many years to come, a lot of our current ones will be changed or dropped, but they are what we have to go by now.

[emmie]

Max Hastings says as much in the Mail yesterday, Turing was treated appallingly, however so were many who were homosexual. that isn't right of course, and thank goodness times have changed. But we can't turn back the clock..

[VHG]

For those that don't know, Alan Turing had a gay relationship with a young man, but the man stole a watch off him, so he reported it to the police.

But the police arrested Turing for picking up this gay man, and he was given the option of a prison sentence or treatment to reduce his sexual desires.

He chose the medical treatment and the treatment made him impotent (shrivelled up his testicles), and caused other medical problems.

Also for those that don't know, his work at Bletchley Park on code breaking (with others of course) probably shortened the war by a couple of years and saved thousands of lives.

He is also considered the father of programmable computers and at the time he helped the UK be the lead in computers (though all of it was secret due to the war).

We passed much of our computer knowledge on to the Americans during the war, but at the end of the war we DESTROYED all the computers as we thought their use had gone. If we had kept them we would have been in the lead in world computing at the time but the Americans "took over".

After the war Alan Turing was hounded by the secret service (being gay he was a good target for the Russians to recruit) and in the end they stopped him working on secret projects.

He was eventually driven to suicide.

I think the pardon is more to do with him being driven to suicide than the actual court case.

[emmie]

i think that many on here do know of him and his work at Bletchley Park.
No one disputes that he was treated appallingly.

[emmie]

this man was every bit as important as Alan Turing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers

[Gromit]

emmie,

Flower's was every bit as important, but he wasn't gay and he was imprisoned and hounded to his death. It is Turing's fate which the nation ought to feel a little guilty about, and why this pointless pardon is going to happen.

[emmie]

i was referring to the post above which seem to suggest that Alan Turing get his pardon for work he did at Bletchley Park

[emmie]

he received a criminal conviction, but i can't see where it says he went to prison.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

[emmie]

and like it or not we are judging this on today's standards, which you can't. i have already said numerous times he was treated appallingly, however one has to wonder why he went to the police in the first place, over a theft, where he ended up confessing to the relationship, knowing full well the consequences. They may have considered him a security risk because of the sensitive nature of his work... that was then, and some things on that score haven't changed.

[Baldric]

Looks like he didn't go to prison

///He accepted treatment with female hormones (chemical castration) as an alternative to prison///.

[mikey4444]

He certainly deserves an apology but I can't see that a pardon would be appropriate. He was convicted quite properly by the law at the time. If we pardon Turing, then 1000's of others would deserve it as well. Pardons are normally given when a person has been wrongly convicted, which Turing was not. An example would be Derek Bentley :::

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Bentley_case

A public apology, with some kind of commemoration, like a plaque of statue should be sufficient.

[New Judge]

Yes he was, Emmie, as were many others who worked at "Station X".

But Tommy Flowers was not chemically castrated and driven to suicide. However, I'm with most others on this. A pardon for Alan Turing alone - as badly treated as he was - is not appropriate.

[237SJ]

Apparently Gordon Brown apologised on behalf of the country in 2009. If he is pardoned, then I think all other gay men who were convicted at that time should also be pardoned. I don`t see why he should receive special treatment because of the good works he did. I saw a blue plaque down the road from here the other day for him (I`d never noticed it before). Apparently, he died at the address when he ate an apple laced with cyanide and was found by his landlady. A sad end indeed.