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MOD tells gay service men and women "we're sorry"
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A spokesman from the Ministry of Defence (MOD) has apologised to people who suffered persecution and discrimination as a result of their sexual orientation prior to the lifting of the ban on homosexuality in the armed forces in 2000.
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In the second of a two-part series, Cleaning Out The Camp, on 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4 (Thursday 28 June), Wing Commander Phil Sagar, who runs the Armed Forces Joint Equality And Diversity Training Centre, which advises on government policy, tells presenter Eddie Mair:
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"Of course we're sorry for anyone who's suffered personal trauma. We can't change the past and what's happened has happened. But if, as I'm sure you have, you've got testimony from people who feel that their lives have been ruined from this, then clearly that is not a good place to be."
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The apology comes at a time when more than 50 gay men and women, who served their country with distinction until their careers were abruptly ended when their sexuality was discovered, are waiting for their cases for breach of privacy to be settled by the Government.
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The first programme of the series (Thursday 21 June) examined archive documents from within the armed services discussing their fears about homosexuality during the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies and which monitored the clamp-down that saw homosexuals and lesbians ruthlessly targeted by special investigation police in an official policy to "clean out homosexuals".
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Eddie Mair met some of the gay men and women who served during that time, some of whom remain deeply emotionally scarred by their experiences.
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Explaining the MOD's historic policy, Wing Commander Sagar says:
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"Team cohesion was clear here. This is about people in close combat relying on comrades left and right of arc. The risk was that a gay person would not be accepted in that group ... I guess you've just got to look at the generation of the people that were at the top of the organisation. It's where they came from and their understanding ... I'm absolutely certain that at the heart of this was the duty of care for all people."
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Although the 1967 Sexual Offences Act decriminalised homosexuality in civilian life, it was 33 years later, in 2000, that the ban on homosexuals was lifted in the armed forces. During this period, gay men and women continued to find themselves the victims of humiliating and sometimes ferocious interrogation procedures. They give distressing testimony of their experiences.
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Wing Commander Sagar himself remembers taking part in barrack raids as recently as 1985, raids which he admits sometimes went too far. He tells Eddie:
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"I got a call from the flight Sgt Provost who was after an officer to 'witness a search'.
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"I appeared in the appropriate barrack block to find four provost senior NCOs and, for some reason best known to them, a dog, to calliper off the padlock of a young serviceman's locker, search through all his material, read all his letters, search all his belongings – purely on the suspicion that he was gay. Ìý
"Now at the time I didn't see anything wrong with that. I stood there as a serviceman doing my duty in accordance with the rules, regulations and culture of the time."
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While admitting that "the establishment and the armed forces have always lagged a little bit behind society's views," Wing Commander Sagar emphatically maintains that progress, once undertaken, was swift.
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"I think, hands up, there was more of a heavy hand than a willing step forward at the time, but I think what's more important is to concentrate on the pace of change since 2000.
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"It went from 'you're fired' to 'you're a valued member of the team'.
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"I don't think I'd sit here and say everything's all right because there's obviously still work to do. I've no doubt there are people who think very carefully about what they say when asked the question 'what did you do at the weekend?'
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"Our challenge is to create an environment where there is a genuine freedom from harassment and discrimination ... We're only seven years down the trail and we've come an awfully long way in seven years, but I guess there's still some way to go."
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One contributor to the programme – Robert Ely, who had reached the rank of Warrant Officer First Class in the Parachute Regiment and was thrown out of the services 21 years ago when his sexual orientation was discovered – agrees.
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"For me, compensation now is the only way to end it. In the past I haven't been a person to want compensation. Now I do. Now I do."
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Cleaning Out The Camp, programme 2, Thursday 28 June 2007, 8.00pm, 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4
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Radio 4 Publicity
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