Thousands of British servicemen who were fired because they were gay will be able to recover their service medals if they had taken them when they were expelled from the armed forces.
Gay rights advocates welcomed the move as a “first step in a journey,” but said issues such as lost criminal records, loss of pension rights and still imperfect service records now need to be addressed by the ministry. of Defense.
Gay men and lesbians were banned from service in the British Army until 2000. About 200 to 250 were expelled each year because of their sexuality and were often stripped of their service medals.
In some cases, medals were physically ripped from a service person’s uniform after a conviction in court-martial. Those found guilty of homosexuality sometimes went on to serve a prison sentence, usually several months.
Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister, said the announcement “is a historic injustice.” He said it was intended to demonstrate that “the army is a positive place to work for all who chose to serve” and encouraged those who believed they were eligible to run.
Last year, Falklands veteran Joe Ousalice, 70, personally returned his long medal of service and good conduct to Secretary of Defense Ben Wallace, who had been removed from him in 1993 after a court hearing. martial.
Ousalice, who is bisexual, had turned 18 as a communications officer in the Royal Navy before being fired from the charges he said he invented. He won his medal after initiating legal action, which led the Ministry of Defense to apologize and promise to review the wider situation.
“That’s not close enough,” Ousalice said. “Basically, when they take away your medal, the medal effectively decrees what you get for your pension. By grabbing my medal and three badges of good behavior I had, my rank narrowed. I had to wait until I was 60 to get a pension, while I could have gotten it right away. ”
Craig Jones, the joint CEO of Fighting with Pride, a charity that supports LGBT + veterans, described the move as the “first step in a journey” and said he believed ministers like Mercer would go further.
“People’s lives were shattered by the ban. We need to try to give back to people their commissions and guarantees, royal pardons of convictions, aid for resettlement, and, yes, there is an overwhelming case of compensation and reinstatement of pensions, ”Jones added.
The Ministry of Defense said the government was working “to examine and understand the great impact of pre-2000 practices on the armed forces.” This, according to the ministry, would ensure that “beyond the return of the medals, the impact of this historic error will be recognized and treated appropriately,” although no further details were given.
Veterans deported before 2000 said they were the victims of covert investigations, including secret filming, or repeated harassment by military police for several years to try to prove they were gay.
The last soldier sent to prison for being gay was David Bonney, who was found guilty in a Cornwall court-martial in 1993. Bonney had joined the RAF at the age of 17 in 1987 and said he had “learned and accepted that he was gay “when he served during the first Gulf War.
Bonney said he was under investigation two years after a copy of Gay Times was found in his room. This included, he said, “crashing into my room, getting people to follow me, placing agents outside of local bars to spy on people going there, using local police stations to take my friends, interview them and create terror and fear. among my friends and associates ”.
The court-martial sentenced him to six months in prison, four of which he served, including one month in solitary confinement, and left him with a criminal record. – although after an appeal, his termination was changed to honorable. He said he hoped the Ministry of Defense would “correct and compensate for the injustice and effective harassment I experienced.”