Humiliating U-turn for Sturgeon in trans prisoner row

In a humiliating U-turn, Nicola Sturgeon has been forced to retreat from the decision to send the rapist, Isla Bryson, who is transitioning to being a woman, to a woman’s jail.

Bryson, who was known as Adam Graham until 2020, was taken to a male wing of HMP Edinburgh on Thursday afternoon. Bryson was convicted of carrying out the rapes in 2016 and 2019 when he still identified as a man.

After uproar from women’s groups all over the country and pressure from within her own party, the First Minister announced that Bryson would not stay in custody at the Cornton Vale women’s prison in Stirling. Bryson, who decided to change gender while awaiting trial, has yet to undergo surgery to transition. He is due to be sentenced next month. 

Sturgeon denied that she had personally intervened in the decision, saying after today’s Holyrood session that she had not given any “formal direction” to the Scottish Prison Service on removing Bryson from Cornton Vale. However, it is fairly clear that the pressure from all corners of the country – as well as polling concerns – may well have had a part to play in the move. 

The decision comes just days after the UK government intervened to block the Scottish First Minister’s controversial Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which would have made it easier for trans people in Scotland to change their legally-recognised gender by allowing those 16 and over to self-identify. The current law requires anyone transitioning to be 18 and have a psychiatric diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

An amendment to the gender bill would have prevented people charged with rape and other serious sexual offences from changing their gender before trial. This was rejected by a coalition of SNP, Green and Liberal Democrat MSPs.

Critics of the bill (and there were many) point to the Bryson case as the perfect example of why Sturgeon’s flagship proposal – and opposition to the amendment – was a dreadful idea, one that would allow sexual predators to game the system.

Politicians from across the political spectrum echoed Rape Crisis Scotland, which said: “It cannot be right for a rapist to be in a women’s prison.”

Shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper – who has previously declined to define what a woman is – said today that the matter was “straightforward”: “This dangerous rapist should not be in a women’s prison. I think it should just be really clear cut. If someone poses a danger to women, has committed crimes against women, they should not be housed among women prisoners.”

From Sturgeon’s point of view, it’s as if the Bryson case has been dreamt up by her political opponents to inflict the most damage possible to her blocked gender bill – which she is now using to whip up hostility against Westminster.

Speaking at First Minister’s Questions in the Scottish Parliament today, Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Conservatives, said his party has been “warning for months” that Sturgeon’s gender bill would make it easier for “violent criminals… to exploit loopholes in the law and attack and traumatise women.”

He added: “It should not have taken public disgust and a slew of negative headlines about a double rapist being sent to a women’s prison for Nicola Sturgeon to realise this was completely unacceptable and wrong.”

Seeing as a majority of Scots opposed her gender bill in the first place, Sturgeon may be asking herself whether it was worth it.

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