Chris Dennis joined the Royal Air Force straight from school in 1961. In 1966, the RAF discovered he was gay. Military police launched an investigation, pressuring him to name other gay colleagues. He refused. He was court-martialled and discharged at 21 years old - for no other reason than being who he was.
Sixty years later, the UK Government has apologised to LGBT+ veterans dismissed under the military's ban on homosexuality, and created a package of recognition that includes a letter from the Prime Minister, restoration of rank, the return of berets and cap badges, and the symbolic Etherton ribbon - presented at a ceremony acknowledging how each veteran was treated.
Chris has received none of it. He was sent a boilerplate refusal letter - not even properly edited - telling him he falls outside the scheme's eligibility window, which opens in 1967. He missed it by a matter of months.
Britain put Alan Turing on the £50 note and pardoned him posthumously. Yet there is a living 80-year-old man who bravely served his country, refused to betray his colleagues under pressure, and was punished for who he loved - and the Ministry of Defence will not give him back his beret.
Chris isn't asking for anything his fellow LGBT+ veterans haven't already received. He wants a small ceremony. He wants to hear that his service and courage mattered. He wants to wear his RAF beret at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday without having to feel, in his own words, "punished for a second time."
The Veterans Minister has the power to extend the non-financial reparations to Chris and others like him. It costs almost nothing. It would mean everything.
Sign now to tell the UK Government: honour Chris Dennis.