Strasbourg ends the military ban on gay men and lesbians
Strasbourg strikes down the British military ban on gay men and lesbians. Four people who had been dismissed fought back.
On 27 September 1999, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg handed down a ruling that would fundamentally change the British armed forces. The judges unanimously held that the United Kingdom, with its ban on homosexual service personnel, had violated the right to respect for private life.
The case had been brought by four people with impeccable careers: Jeanette Smith and Graeme Grady of the Royal Air Force and Duncan Lustig-Prean and John Beckett of the Royal Navy. All four had been dismissed in the mid-nineties after their homosexuality became known. Grady had served for more than fourteen years, most recently at the British Embassy in Washington. Then he was summoned to a supposed meeting. It was an interrogation. The investigators wanted to know whom he slept with, what he did and how old his partners were.
Supported by the organisation Stonewall, the four went to court. In Britain they lost, and Grady was left with legal costs of more than a hundred thousand pounds. The government argued that openly homosexual service personnel endangered the morale and fighting power of the forces. Strasbourg did not accept this and described the investigations as exceptionally intrusive.
Just a few months later, in January 2000, London lifted the ban. For many it came too late. They had lost their careers, often their pensions and medals too. Only in 2023 did the British government officially apologise to those affected. Since autumn 2025, a memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire has commemorated them; King Charles III attended the unveiling.