Alan Turing

Gordon Brown issued an unequivocal apology last night on behalf of the government to Alan Turing, the Second World War codebreaker who took his own life 55 years ago after being sentenced to chemical castration for being gay.

Describing Turing’s treatment as “horrifying” and “utterly unfair”, Brown said the country owed the brilliant mathematician a huge debt. He was proud, he said, to offer an official apology. “We’re sorry, you deserved so much better,” Brown writes in a statement posted on the No 10 website.

Turing is most famous for his work in helping create the “bombe” that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines. He was convicted of gross indecency in 1952 after admitting a sexual relationship with a man.

He was given experimental chemical castration as a “treatment”. His criminal record meant he was unable to continue his work for the UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) because his security privileges were withdrawn. Two years later he killed himself, aged 41. Caroline Davies, The Guardian.

I’m not a fan of retrospective apologies by the Prime Minister – however if he is to issue them then in this case he shouldn’t limit himself to Turing but all convicted under the misapprehension that being homosexual was a mental illness. What on earth is chemical castration? No wonder Turing committed suicide,