Alan Turing: Rewriting History

SIR – There are a number of reasons why a free pardon for Alan Turing (Letters, December 18) is misconceived. That he was properly convicted of what was a crime at the time is the least compelling of them.

First, a pardon does not extinguish a conviction but merely cancels its pains and penalties. Posthumous pardons have been granted in recent years, but as a matter of law a posthumous pardon makes no sense.

Secondly, the conviction for what is no longer an offence and, in respect of conduct, today attracts no opprobrium cannot possibly be said to damage Turing’s reputation. Your correspondents say: “It is time his reputation was unblemished.” It is unblemished.

Thirdly, it would be quite wrong to pardon one person, however distinguished, and leave undisturbed the convictions of the many others also convicted. In the case of those convicted of cowardice at courts-martial during the First World War, an Act of Parliament pardoned all those convicted without naming them.

Finally, Turing’s conviction strikingly illustrates the law’s grotesque past criminalisation of consensual homosexual conduct and its terrible consequences. History should not be rewritten but allowed to speak of the misuse of the criminal sanction, the intolerance and cruelty of earlier times and the evolution in cultural and moral norms.

Professor Graham Zellick QC
Wothorpe, Cambridgeshire

Daily Telegraph.

Couldn't agree more.
It's estimated around 16,000 men were convicted of now legal homosexual acts - it is insulting to argue Turing deserves special treatment because he was a genius and/or for his role in the war.
Oh gawd, I've agreed with a letter in the Telegraph.
It's all downhill from here...