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Government finally apologises to Alan Turing

By Stuart Turton

Posted on 11 Sep 2009 at 08:50

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has made a posthumous apology to Alan Turing, decrying the "appalling" way he was treated after the war.

Alan Turing was a brilliant mathematician and cryptographer whose codebreaking efforts at Bletchley Park during the Second World War are widely considered to have considerably shortened the conflict.

However, in 1952 Turing was found guilty of gross indecency following a homosexual relationship. He was forced to take hormonal medication that chemically castrated him, and two years later he killed himself.

In a letter to the Telegraph, the Prime Minister apologised on behalf of the British government: "While Mr Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him.

"So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better," the letter concludes.

The apology comes off the back of a petition on the Number 10 website started by John Graham-Cumming, which garnered 3,000 signatures including those of Ian McEwan, Richard Dawkins and Stephen Fry.

Graham-Cumming is now campaigning for Turing to receive a posthumous knighthood for his achievements both during and after the war.

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User comments

How much of this is Brown wanting good press?

Alan Turing (and everyone who suffered from anti sodomy/anti indecency laws) has deserved an apology for a long, long time but if the apology he gets is from a deeply unpopular PM wanting to get a bit of press I think we can rightly decide that he's been cheated.

By steviesteveo on 11 Sep 2009

GB

Re steviesteveo - so it's damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

By AdrianB on 11 Sep 2009

Oh the irony!

An apology from someone unwilling to admit to his own homosexuality (Brown) really doesn't carry much weight does it?

By Lacrobat on 12 Sep 2009

If the work done at Bletchley Park had been developed for commercial use instead of being destroyed after the war, then Britain might now be the world leader in IT tech.

As it was, the Americans re-invented most of the tech some years later, so the obsession with secrecy served no purpose. But, we had a substantial head-start in the computing field and we threw it away.

By Anteaus on 12 Sep 2009

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