Military veterans stripped of their medals for being gay will have honours restored under new rules

Military veterans who were stripped of their medals for being gay or transgender will be able to get them restored under a new scheme to remedy historic injustices. Veterans minister Johnny Mercer will announce next week as part of LGBT History Month that former servicemen and women will be invited to apply to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) if they were denied honours they had earned because of their sexuality. A senior Government official said: “This is about fixing a historic injustice where heroes have had their medals taken away from them for all the wrong reasons.” The move comes four years after the so-called “Turing law”, named after computing pioneer Alan Turing, which issued posthumous pardons to gay men who were convicted of sexual offences under laws which have since been repealed.