Records of Armed Forces personnel who were dismissed for being gay have been destroyed by the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD), BBC news reported.
It comes after veterans who asked for documents relating to investigations into them by the military police were told they had been deleted in 2010.
The department stated the action was taken as it had a legal duty to make sure the details were removed from service records.
Jean Macdonald, who was dismissed as a lance corporal in the Women’s Royal Army Corps in 1981 for being gay, was among those requesting her data from the MoD before being it had been deleted after an order from the “Defence Police Chiefs’ Council”.
“All of a sudden you’ve lost your whole career, you’ve lost your friends, you’ve lost your accommodation, you know, your whole way of life – it’s just full of shame,” she told the BBC.
She recently received an email confirming the news.
“All investigations into offences relating solely to sexuality… were to be removed from our systems and deleted from the records of the affected service personnel,” part of it read.
Now, all that remains on the database is a document which lists the reason for dismissal: “Conducting oneself disgracefully – unnatural act.”
Macdonald said this made her feel “invisible” and like the experiences of fired gay veterans is “a bit of hidden history.”
Responding to the news, Luke Pollard, the Shadow Armed Forces Minister, said: “LGBT+ veterans are rightly furious at these revelations.
“The MoD must urgently set out why investigations into LGBT+ veterans were erased from service records and what steps they are taking to rebuild trust with the community.”
LGBT+ veterans are rightly furious at these revelations.
The MoD must urgently set out why investigations into LGBT+ veterans were erased from service records and what steps they are taking to rebuild trust with the community.https://t.co/95rc3gTayI
— Luke Pollard (@LukePollard) November 2, 2022
Fighting with Pride, one of the most prominent Armed Forces LGBTQ+ charities, stated that the erasure of the data could result in some veterans struggling to access government compensation or lost pensions.
Earlier this year, it was announced that the government was ordering an independent review into the impact of the military’s ban on LGBTQ+ people.
A spokesperson for the MoD said this policy “was abhorrent.”
“We deeply regret LGBT+ members serving in defence suffered injustice as a consequence. Our priority now is to understand the full impact of the historic ban and find appropriate ways to address the wrongs of the past,” they continued.
“The policy followed at the time was to remove references to these former offences and investigations from service records. There was a legal duty to ensure these records were erased from individuals service records.”
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