Nicola Sturgeon came under pressure from campaigners, MPs, and Downing Street after they expressed concerns that a transgender rapist convicted of attacks on two women was set to be sent to a female jail to await sentencing.
“I hope that provides to the public residing officer, at least to the victims in this particular case,” she said.
On Tuesday, Adam Graham, 31, who now uses the name Isla Bryson, was found guilty of raping two women in Scotland, one in 2016 and another in 2019, following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow.
Graham first appeared in court in 2019 and was later named in court papers the following year, around the time he began identifying as Isla Annie Bryson.
The convicted rapist did not make the decision to transition until 29 and is currently taking hormones and seeking surgery to complete gender reassignment.
Bryson/Graham was being held at Cornton Vale women’s prison in Stirling while awaiting sentence for the crimes, and it is unclear where the prisoner is being held now.
In response, Scottish Tory Leader Douglas Moray who raised the question said: “I am unsure of what First Minister is trying to say when the reality is this double rapist, this beast, is in a women’s prison right now.”
Safety of Women Prisoners
Before the confirmation, MPs and women’s rights campaigners voiced their fears about Bryson/Graham potentially being held in the women’s estate.On Wednesday, Downing Street said that it has expressed “concerns” about the situation.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “This is a case in which the courts are yet to hand down a sentence so I’m not going to give anything on the specifics. I’ve seen the reporting and understand the concerns.”
SNP MP and QC Joanna Cherry told Times Radio that she was “very concerned about the safety of women prisoners, with whom a convicted rapist has been placed.”
“To many people, it will look like this convicted rapist has gamed the system in order to try and garner sympathy, and to end up in a women’s prison. And I think a lot of people will be shocked by that,” she said.
“So I think we should be talking about these cases. And women in prison are very vulnerable. Many women in prison have themselves been abused, and have suffered injuries over the years. And so they’re particularly vulnerable. And perhaps some people would say nobody really cares about prisoners,” she added.
“But the point about human rights is that they’re universal, and they apply to everyone. So I’m very concerned about the safety of women prisoners, with whom a convicted rapist has been placed,” said Cherry.
Self-ID Process
Scotland became the UK’s first country to back a self-ID process for legally changing gender when it passed the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill in December, though for the first time ever the UK government is making an order to block the bill in its current form over concerns that the bill has “safety issues for women and children.”Scottish Conservative MSP Russell Findlay said: “We now have the utterly perverse situation where a Scottish court refers to someone who says he identifies as female using ‘her penis’ to rape two vulnerable women.”
“We warned of the inevitability of this happening if the SNP’s gender self-ID law passed, but for it already to have become reality is deeply worrying and an affront to the victims,” he said.
‘We Couldn’t Hold Them’
Rhona Hotchkiss, former prison governor of HMP Cornton Vale in Scotland, has expressed major concerns about incidents of inappropriate sexualised and aggressive behaviour and threats by male prisoners housed in the female estate, leaving female prisoners feeling unsafe and at risk.Hotchkiss told The Epoch Times by email that “segregation has to be renewed every 72 hours and approved by Scottish Ministers.”
“If the individual is not offering violence or issuing threats to staff or other prisoners, it is almost impossible to continue segregation. We had to allow people out of there whom we absolutely knew would be violent, but we couldn’t hold them,” she said.
Kate Coleman runs the organisation Keep Prisons Single Sex, which was set up in 2020 to campaign for the right of female prisoners to single-sex provision.
“How many times do we have to discuss why a man, convicted of rape, is being held in women’s prison?” Coleman told The Epoch Times.
“The point is that this is a male person and that doesn’t change. It’s not about trying to work out who’s really trans, it’s about correctly identifying who is male, and being male doesn’t change, which is important in these single-sex spaces and in the assessment of risk and safeguarding,” added Coleman.
A Scottish Prison Service spokesman said that under its rules decisions to accommodate transgender people are “made on an individualised basis, informed by a multi-disciplinary assessment of both risk and need.”
“Such decisions seek to protect both the wellbeing and rights of the individual as well as the welfare and rights of others around them, including staff, in order to achieve an outcome that balances risks and promotes the safety of all.
“Where there are any concerns about any risks posed by an individual, either to themselves or others, we retain the ability to keep them separate from the mainstream population until an agreed management plan is in place.”
