Parliament Must Pardon Alan Turing

Members of Parliament are at last taking action to right the appalling and longstanding injustice which saw world ranking scientist and code-breaker Alan Turing convicted in 1952 of what was then officially condemned as ‘indecency’. This was to be punished ruthlessly regardless of the presence of discretion and affection and the absence of any complaints.
There followed his subsequent cruel, legally imposed, physical mistreatment (chemical castration) and persecution that led to his death from cyanide poisoning – which was then officially classified as suicide.
A 21st Century Parliamentary pardon for Alan Turing is the very least the politicians should do. In fact they should also strike a medal and commission a statue – ideal for the plinth in Trafalgar Square that has seen so much rubbish displayed.
The Government that refused calls for a full pardon in 2012 has now said it would not stand in the way of the bill, but this dismal passivity may not be enough to guarantee the bill’s passage. The Government needs to give it their full backing.
Alan Turing was pre-eminent in the team at Bletchley Park that cracked the Enigma code, a breakthrough critical to the allied war effort. He is now universally recognised as a leading computing pioneer and a highly original scientific thinker in mathematics, computing and indeed other fields.
But at the time of his death he was virtually unknown to the general public, as his work at Bletchley Park was kept secret until 1974. His work to crack the Enigma code probably turned the course of the Battle of the Atlantic, shortened World War II by two years and may have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
The country would have faced starvation - and some of us may not have been alive today - if Turing and his team had not cracked the codes that showed where U-boats were intercepting vital supplies from the United States. You may owe him your life. The country certainly owes an enormous debt to Alan Turing and debts should be repaid - as the Chancellor of the Exchequer is constantly reminding us.
In 2009 the Prime Minister at the time, Gordon Brown, did issue an apology for Alan Turing’s appalling treatment at official hands, but campaigns for a full pardon for Alan Turing have not so far been successful.
The prime ministerial apology, though welcome, is not nearly enough. The fundamental concern is not about putting legal technicalities first; rather it is about much higher things - atonement, justice, recognition and indebtedness to Alan Turing.
After the war, Alan Turing went on to help create the world's first modern computer, the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine – pioneering work that was built upon by the mathematician John von Neumann in the United States. Alan Turing also devised the famous Turing Test for the detection of artificial intelligence, which is still widely referred to in the literature.
Many of Britain's leading scientists, including Professor Stephen Hawking, have called on the Government to grant Alan Turing a posthumous pardon. The Government should respond to this call and rapidly revise its position and take the lead in expressing gratitude to Alan Turing and according him, after 61 years, the full public recognition and standing that he so richly deserves.