LGBT veterans who served during ban on gay troops to share experiences in government review

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LGBT veterans will be asked about how they were treated when serving in the British military while there was a ban on gay personnel.

About 5,000 ex-service personnel had been severely penalised for their identity in ways that include being sacked, convicted, and imprisoned.

Other gay people who had kept their sexuality secret from their superiors felt forced to resign.

The ban was lifted in 2000 after four servicemen and women, who were sacked for being gay, won a case in the European Court of Human Rights.

The change came 33 years after homosexual acts were decriminalised between two consenting adults over the age of 21 in most cases.

The Cabinet Office has launched the independent wide-ranging review to explore the “impact of the pre-2000 ban of homosexual personnel in the military” the government’s website says.

Equalities minister Mike Freer vowed that the responses will help play a part in a drive to “right the wrongs of the past”, and veterans minister Leo Docherty said said the review will help the government “better tailor support to the community.”

Armed forces minister James Heappey told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The review needs to understand what the consequences were of that extraordinarily wrong-headed policy.”

Some campaigners have called for those whose lives were impacted by the ban to be offered compensation.

Mr Heappey did not state whether there would be pay-outs, but said “it may be that compensation matters more” than apologies.

The review will look into how LGBT veterans were affected by the ban, how they can now be “recognised and fully accepted as members of the Armed Forces community”, and how accessible services for veterans have been for them.

The review is part of the newly-launched Veterans’ Strategy Action Plan.

Steps have already been taken to enable troops who “forfeited medals for reasons relating to their sexuality” to apply to have them returned, and to allow gay men to have their convictions of now-decriminalised sexual offences to be disregarded – the government said.

In 1995, David Bonney served four months in a military prison in Essex after being convicted of “homosexual conduct” while working as a medic for the RAF.

Although he was later freed on appeal, the conviction is still on his criminal record, which he said has long impacted his life.

He told the BBC: “Handcuffs, going into a cell, treated as if I’d murdered or mugged someone.”

Thousands of troops had their “lives shattered” by criminal convictions, prison sentences, and dismissals from their jobs over their sexuality, according to Craig Jones and Caroline Paige, joint CEOs of charity Fighting With Pride.

They added: “We welcome this important step forward by the government in their work to find remedy for LGBT+ Veterans who stepped forward for military service and were treated in a way that does not reflect the values of the United Kingdom today.”

A chair for the review has yet to be announced, and the terms of reference of the review will be “published in due course,” the government said.