Fighting With Pride – “It’s time for the government to deliver on vital promises to LGBT Veterans who suffered horrific treatment in Armed Forces”
On Tuesday 10 September Secretary of State for Defence, Rt Hon John Healey MP will present pin badges to three veterans who suffered the injustice of the ‘gay ban’ in the military. Like thousands of other LGBT Veterans, Royal Navy sailor Emma Riley, British Army soldier Stephen Close and former RAF serviceman Carl Austin-Behan OBE will receive a pin badge to symbolise the injustice and abhorrent treatment faced by LGBT members of the Armed Forces prior to the ban being lifted on 12th January 2000.
Fighting With Pride welcomes the first presentations of the pin badge, which we recommended to Lord Etherton and were included in his official LGBT Veterans Independent Review. However, the fight for justice for LGBT Veterans is not over until fair compensation is paid for; treatment former Prime Minister Sunak referred to in his apology on behalf of the British people in July 2023. Mr Sunak said:
“The ban on LGBT people serving in our Armed Forces until the year 2000 was an appalling failure of the British state decades behind the law of this land. In that period many endured the most horrific sexual abuse and violence, homophobic bullying and harassment, all while bravely serving this country. Today on behalf of the British state, I apologise.”
In a recent report by the National Audit Office (NAO) up to 4000 veterans were assessed by Government actuaries to be expected to be eligible for compensation. Fighting with Pride was one of a number of community charities that consulted on the NAO report which seeks to establish lessons learned from Horizon, Windrush and the LGBT Veterans scandals.
Based on these government figures, the £50 million currently proposed for the reparations fund would mean average payments to each of the 4000 applicants of just £12,500. Fighting With Pride does not believe that this is an appropriate level of reparations for those who were investigated, arrested, interrogated, humiliated, imprisoned and forcibly outed to friends and family. Many LGBT+ veterans lost homes, careers, and years of pensionable service.
LGBT military charity Fighting With Pride calls for swift action. Royal Navy veteran Craig Jones MBE, leader of the campaign said :
“In the light of the greater numbers affected by the policy, more compensation must be made available. We welcome the presentations of pin badges today and the important message it sends about righting the wrongs of this abhorrent, historic policy. The three who are receiving these deeply symbolic badges will be the first of many. Now it’s vital the new government moves quickly to deliver proper recompense and get justice done. We’re especially concerned for older and sick veterans and those impoverished as a consequence of the illegal gay ban’
“The funding intended for this scheme is inadequate, in fact we go so far as to say it risks being seen as an insult. It fails to take account of the shocking treatment inflicted upon a community of veterans who defended our peace and freedom but were treated in a way which the Prime Minister said had brought dishonour on our nation. This is the moment for the government to do the right thing.”
