Labour proposes 'Turing's Law' to pardon convicted gay men

Ed Miliband has announced that a Labour government would pass a “Turing’s law” allowing the relatives of deceased gay men convicted under now-repealed indecency laws to obtain a pardon.

The family of Wilmslow codebreaker Alan Turing have been campaigning for pardons for 49,000 other men persecuted like him for their homosexuality.

Turing, whose work cracking the German military codes was vital to the British war effort against Nazi Germany, was convicted in 1952 for gross indecency with a 19-year-old man.

He was given a postumous royal pardon in 2013.

Under the Labour plan, the family and friends of dead men would be able to apply to the Home Office to have gross indecency convictions quashed where they involved consensual same-sex relationships

Under legislation passed three years ago people still alive with convictions of this kind can already have them expunged from the record.