Lord Sharkey, Will Jones and John Leech MP in Didsbury at John's Office
Regular readers of my blog and followers of the Alan Turing campaign will have noticed the recent collaborations with Lord Sharkey in the Lords.
We have been working together to try to secure justice for Alan Turing and others like him. Lord Sharkey tabled an amendment which would allow relatives of Alan Turing to apply to have his conviction disregarded. The amendment was welcomed by the opposition front bench and given supportive “hear, hear” shouts from various peers in the chamber, the Minister presiding did however reject the amendment.
http://www.parliamentlive.tv/Main/Player.aspx?meetingId=10483&st=15%3a29%3a57&player=silverlight
Lord Sharkey’s speech is at 7.37 or 22.37
This decision was very disappointing for us both and has denied justice for thousands of people yet again. However, it is not the end of the campaign and our efforts to get justice for Alan Turing and everyone like him continue!
johnleechmp.wordpress.com 
Your efforts are appreciated. It would be great to see Turing rehabilitated this centenary year.
I’ve been following your involvement for quite some time and have also been advocating for Turing’s regabilitation on my blog (http://theturingcentenary.wordpress.com/). I want to thank you for your efforts and encourage you to continue despite the disappointing reactions so far. I’m quite sure that you will continue to have broad support for your efforts.
I have to say that this particular rejection is beyond all logic. I understand that there is a policy against issuing pardons to people who were guilty undert the law as it stood at the point in time when they were convicted, however reprehensible the law may have been. I don’t accept this as an excuse, frankly, but I at least understand that the institutional intertia represented by that policy can be difficult to overcome.
But the law permitting the disregarding of these convictions *has* no inertia — it is entirely new and should be open to any reasonable amendment or adjustment prior to being passed and, indeed, for some time afterward as the bugs are worked out.
One of the bugs I identified and blogged about long ago — as others have done — is that families cannot apply on behalf of their deceased loved ones.
Very few people convicted under this abominable law suffered alone — their parents suffered, their brothers and sisters suffered, their spouses suffered (where they had spouses), and likewise their children. The immense wrong that was done to the convict was done in uncountable ways to everyone who loved them. Those wounds were perhaps smaller, but they were no less unprovoked, unnecessary, ill-conceived, or evil. Families now should, without question, be able to clear the name of a loved one who has passed on *and* should be able to clear the family name as well.
Where there is at least a flmsy justification for denying a pardon, there is no justification at all for denying this avenue to the families of those victimized by homophobic irrationality.
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Psssst: you mean “hear hear”. Keep up the good work, though.