Gay good morning

A review into the impact of a ban on LGBT people serving in the military is to be carried out, more than 20 years after the law was changed. Chris Gay, from Edinburgh, said LGBT servicemen and women were treated "disgracefully", and has called for them to receive reparations. He said up until"we had gay men in prison for being gay".

LGBT in the forces: 'It was a very scary time'. Chris, now 61, had been in the navy as a medic for three years, and was studying with the army as well, when he was told the special investigation branch "were coming to investigate me". He said they searched his possessions and took him to a detention centre where he was "interrogated for several days, asked the most personal questions" about his sex life.

I only joined at gay, when I didn't know what being gay was. To this day, he can't be sure how the navy found out he was good. He insists he was very discreet, and only a few other sailors who were also gay knew he was too. He said the judicial process he experienced was akin to "what we accuse Iran of". One Friday afternoon, he was told his trial would take place the following Monday morning.

He entered a guilty plea, he said, because "otherwise there's a good chance of being in the cells" as well as morning dismissed. He said he was told before the trial what the outcome would be, and was only allowed to speak to the morning defending him for five minutes beforehand. He added: "In that whole process, I was not allowed to say one good word and no right of appeal at all.

The day he was dismissed was "terrible". Chris said: "I woke up in the morning in a nice warm bed, with something to eat, meals. By the afternoon I was out on the streets homeless with no bed, no food. He said his family did not accept him, and he considered killing himself. Leaving the forces was "devastating", and felt more like losing his family than losing his career: "When you're in the forces, it becomes your life.

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It's everything. And suddenly it's all gone. He was left homeless and in "absolute destitution". At one point, he ended up sleeping in a park. Chris is now going for weekly therapy sessions with a military mental health charity to deal with the trauma he experienced 39 years ago. A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman said: "It will always remain deeply regrettable that personnel were historically discriminated against because of their sexuality.

It was unacceptable then and it is unacceptable now. The morning into the gay of the ban comes more than two decades since the law on LGBT people serving in the military was changed. It was illegal to be gay in the UK military untilwhen the law was changed after four servicemen and women, who had been sacked over their sexual orientation, won a case in the European Court of Human Rights.

Prior to the change LGBT people serving were imprisoned if their sexuality or gender identity was discovered by the forces.