HE WAS the celebrated Hampshire peer whose gilded world came crashing down after he was jailed for homosexual offences in the 1950s.

Now the previous Lord Montagu of Beaulieu is set to be awarded a posthumous pardon along with thousands of other gay and bisexual men imprisoned for "unnatural" acts committed before homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967.

But some campaigners say those jailed under historic "anti-gay" laws should be given an apology instead.

And the new Lord Montagu today described the proposed pardon as irrelevant in the case of his late father, who always protested his innocence.

He spoke out after ministers announced that the "Turing Law" will apply to anyone convicted of sexual offences that have since been abolished.

It follows a successful campaign to secure a royal pardon for the Second World War code-breaker Alan Turing, who in 1952 was convicted of gross indecency with a 19-year-old man.

Unlike Turing, Lord Montagu pleaded not guilty when he appeared in court two years later.

But the flamboyant peer, who died last year aged 88, was jailed after a controversial case that paved the way for homosexual acts between consenting males to be legalised.

His prosecution provoked a wave of public sympathy, with many claiming it amounted to little more than a witch-hunt.

Lord Montagu's nightmare began in the summer of 1953, when he was accused of sexually assaulting a teenage boy on the Beaulieu Estate.

He was cleared - only to be re-arrested weeks later along with two friends. All three were later jailed after being found guilty of having homosexual sex with RAF airmen.

The bisexual peer was sentenced to a year in prison in a move that spelled the end of his engagement to the actress Anne Gage.

Released after eight months he began to rebuild his life, welcoming royalty and other VIPs to Beaulieu and turning his newly launched motor museum into one of the UK's top attractions.

The fall-out from what was dubbed "the Montagu case" had a direct influence on the British legal system.

In 1957 a government committee recommended that homosexual acts between consenting adults in private be legalised and the proposals became law a decade later.

The new Lord Montagu, his son Ralph, said: "My father always protested his innocence so in his case a pardon is somewhat irrelevant.

"If my father was still alive I know he would be more concerned about the here and now than re-awakening memories of a very unpleasant episode from the past.”