Posthumous apology to Alan Turing

Gordon Brown has made a posthumous apology to the late Alan Turing in response to a petition organised by John Graham–Cumming. Turing was a brilliant mathematician who was instrumental in the breaking of the German’s enigma code during the Second World War and was described by Churchill as having made the single biggest contribution to Allied victory in the war against Nazi Germany. As most now know the work of Bletchey Park was kept obsessionally secret even after the war and Turing received only an OBE for his services. He did, however, remain involved in intelligence work until his arrest and subsequent conviction for gross indecency in 1952. Rather than a prison sentence Turing agreed to to undergo experimental hormone therapy – he was injected with female hormones to reduce his sex drive and chemically castrated. Turing committed suicide in June 1954 having apparently eaten an apple laced with cyanide (probably the reason for Apple’s logo).

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