The reasons why his statue graces a seat in Manchester's Gay Village and his life ended so tragically are one and the same - Alan Turing was gay.

Turing lived in a time when homosexuality between men was a criminal offence, which meant that in 1952, a decade after his heroic code-breaking work in World War Two, he was convicted of gross indecency for having sex with a man.

He escaped prison by agreeing to undergo experimental hormone therapy to reduce his sex drive, but the pain of his conviction and the professional humiliation that it brought (his security privileges were rescinded, so he could no longer work at the high echelons he had been) was too much.

It pushed him into a spiral of despair which led, two years later, to him taking his own life by eating a cyanide laced apple at his Wilmslow home.

It is 55 years since that tragic end, but the issues around it still burn brightly for some.
John Graham-Cumming, a computer author and programmer himself, launched a petition on the Number 10 website , calling for 'the Prime Minister to apologise for the prosecution of Alan Turing that led to his untimely death.'

Adding: 'An apology would recognise the tragic consequences of prejudice that ended this man's life and career.'

He says that he set up the petition simply because he feels that "Turing has not been recognised for his work, nor have we recognised the fact that we had lost someone special at the young age of 41."

"This campaign is about finding justice for Alan Turing.

"We did treat him in an appalling fashion and a pardon by the British Government would go a long way to getting his name into the public domain for the right reasons - for his computer work and his work during the war."

John doesn't believe that the Government will comply with his request, regardless of how many sign the petition, but he remains positive, suggesting there are other ways to change how Truing is perceived.

"While I don't think will happen, I think the best thing would be to get funding set up in his name at Bletchley Park [where Turing served during WWII]."

Today PM Gordon Brown said:

"2009 has been a year of deep reflection - a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British experience.

"Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain's fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

"Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of 'gross indecency' - in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence - and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison - was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

"Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can't put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

"I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan's status as one of Britain's most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.

"But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind's darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate - by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices - that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe's history and not Europe's present.

"So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan's work I am very proud to say: we're sorry, you deserved so much better."

Gordon Brown

Organisers of the petition welcomed the move and Mr Turing's three nieces said they were "delighted" and "very glad" to see the injustice recognised.

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Alan Turing is most famous for his code-breaking work at Bletchley Park during WWII, helping to create the Bombe that cracked messages enciphered with the German Enigma machines.

It is widely recognised Alan Turing and all at Bletchley Park, shortened WWII by two years by decoding German enigma codes.

However, he also made significant contributions to the emerging fields of artificial intelligence and computing.

In 1936 he established the conceptual and philosophical basis for the rise of computers in a seminal paper called On Computable Numbers, while in 1950 he devised a test to measure the intelligence of a machine. Today it is known as the Turing Test.

After the war he worked at many institutions including the University of Manchester, where he worked on the Manchester Mark 1, one of the first recognisable modern computers.

Apple computers famous logo is a tribute to Alan depicting the apple he laced with cyanide and ate.