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"Alan Turing law" is an informal term for the law in the United Kingdom, contained in the Policing and Crime Act 2017,[1] which serves as an amnesty law to pardon men who were cautioned or convicted under historical legislation that outlawed homosexual acts.[2] The provision is named after Alan Turing, the World War II codebreaker and computing pioneer, who was convicted of gross indecency in 1952. Turing received a royal pardon posthumously in 2013. The law applies in England and Wales.[2]
Several proposals had been put forward for an Alan Turing law,[3][4][5] and introducing such a law has been government policy since 2015.[6] To implement the pardon, the British Government announced on 20 October 2016 that it would support an amendment to the Policing and Crime Act that would provide a posthumous pardon, also providing an automatic formal pardon for living people who had had such offences removed from their record.[7][8] A rival bill to implement the Alan Turing law, in second reading at the time of the government announcement, was filibustered.[9] The bill received royal assent on 31 January 2017, and the pardon was implemented that same day.[10] The law provides pardons only for men convicted of acts that are no longer offences; those convicted under the same laws of offences that were still crimes on the date the law went into effect, such as cottaging, underage sex, or rape, were not pardoned.[11]
Manchester Withington MP John Leech, often described as 'the architect' of the Alan Turing Law, led a high-profile campaign to pardon Turing and submitted several bills to parliament, leading to the eventual posthumous pardon.[12]
In England and Wales, where homosexual acts between consenting adults was permitted after 1967, there is similar legislation - dubbed the 'Turing law' after the World War Two code-breaker Alan Turing who was pardoned posthumously in 2013 for his conviction of gross indecency.
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