Latest news with #HMPGlenochil
Daily Record
15-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Record
Isla Bryson demands to be moved back to female jail after slamming court ruling
Despite the sex offender admitting that life in male jails has meant being able to forge romantic relationships with male prisoners, Bryson says a challenge of the legal ruling could see a move from the male estate. Isla Bryson has slammed a court ruling on biological sex and demanded to be moved back to a female prison. The convicted double rapist, born Adam Graham, began to identify as a woman called Isla while awaiting trial for rape. The case caused political waves after the rapist was sent to female jail Cornton Vale before then FM Nicola Sturgeon announced a switch to all-male HMP Edinburgh and later HMP Glenochil. In April, the Supreme Court ruled a woman is defined by biological sex under equalities law and the Scottish Government is facing calls to move all biological men out of women's jails. The decision came after feminist group For Women Scotland (FWS) challenged the Scottish Government's 2018 ruling that transgender women could be included as female in laws requiring 50/50 representation on public boards. Bryson backs plans by Victoria McCloud, the UK's only judge to ever publicly say they are transgender, to challenge the government at the European Court of Human Rights over the ruling and plans her own appeal there. Despite the sex offender admitting last week that life in male jails has meant being able to forge romantic relationships with male prisoners, Bryson says a challenge of the legal ruling could see a move from the male estate. Speaking to the Sunday Mail in a phone call from jail, Bryson said: 'No matter what you think or how you look at it, trans women will always be women. "Even if you don't agree with it, then that's your opinion. We are not going to go away. Sooner or later judges will have to put trans women back in women's prisons because if they don't, trans women have the right to take it to the European court and they will. 'If they win and the courts say women have to go to women's prisons, I will probably get moved to a women's prison.' After the outcry over Bryson, trans prisoners faced a move to male jails but prison chiefs opted to let them stay if they had not shown violence to women. However, Alba MSP Ash Regan said: 'The perversity of a double rapist demanding access to women's prisons sums up why we must end this dangerous experiment of gender ideology eroding sex-based rights – male entitlement masquerading as rights must never be at the expense of women's safety, dignity and consent. 'Eight weeks after the Supreme Court ruling, ministers dither while lobbyists stoke the mis-information they helped create. 'Now even Isla Bryson/Adam Graham – the double rapist who shocked the nation – joins a small but vocal chorus in demanding the law be overturned to allow him access to a woman's jail. 'If this is not the wake-up call needed for John Swinney's government, then a third first minister may be sacrificed on the altar of gender ideology.' Scottish Tory shadow minister for victims Sharon Dowey said: 'These abhorrent comments from a double rapist will anger Scots. Not only is this call deeply insulting to his victims, it also highlights how the SNP's gender self-ID policy has become so embedded in Scotland's justice system.' FWS's Susan Smith said: 'For all the activists and politicians who've been trying to undermine the Supreme Court ruling and claim this about walking groups and toilets, this intervention from a notorious double rapist highlights it is vulnerable women whose safety would be threatened by any challenge or change to the law.' The Scottish Prison Service said it had received the Supreme Court ruling and is 'considering any potential impact it may have'. The Scottish Government said it 'has been clear that we accept the Supreme Court judgement'.
Daily Record
14-06-2025
- Daily Record
Listen as Tans rapist Isla Bryson boasts about bagging men behind bars in prison call
Scotland's most controversial prisoner has admitted life in male estates has meant the rapist has been able to forge romantic relationships with male prisoners. Trans rapist Isla Bryson can be heard boasting about bagging men behind bars in a shocking phone call made from prison. The sex fiend told of the relationships after being moved from a female jail to the male estate. Scotland's most controversial prisoner admitted life in male prisons has meant the rapist has been able to forge romantic connections with male inmates. In the first ever recorded telephone call from jail this week, Bryson vowed to continue living as a woman and claimed of 'meeting men' and admitted striking up a relationship with a fellow prisoner, who was jailed for child sex abuse and drug offences. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. 'I've always been like this Can I be honest, I am glad I'm in a male jail and do you know why? 'Because if I was in a female jail I'd never be able to have relationships or meet guys. 'Do you know what I mean?' Bryson, born Adam Graham, began to identify as a woman called Isla while awaiting trial for rape. Bryson's case caused public and political outrage after the rapist was sent to female jail Cornton Vale before Nicola Sturgeon, then first minister, announced a switch to all-male HMP Edinburgh. The double rapist, who was jailed for eight years, with a further three on licence in February 2023, was later moved to HMP Glenochil. Referring to his relationship with the other con, Bryson said: 'I met him in the jail and I was with him for six months and then he got moved. 'I was sleeping with him for six months. And basically he got moved 'Obviously it was all consensual.' In April, Britain's Supreme Court ruled that only two biological sexes - male and female, assigned at birth - can be recognised under the 2010 Equality Act. The decision is likely to have far reaching repercussions and has raised questions over whether trans prisoners should be housed in all-female jails. Bryson, 33, was convicted in January 2023 of raping woman in Clydebank and Drumchapel, while known as Graham. A spokesperson for The Scottish Prison Service said: 'We don't comment on individuals. 'We have received the Supreme Court's judgement and are considering any potential impact it may have."
The Independent
23-05-2025
- The Independent
British men have been volunteering for chemical castration for years – is there a case to make it work?
Ryan Yates was 30 years old when a judge told him that he may never be released from prison. He was jailed more than 15 years ago, in April 2010, at the High Court in Glasgow, where Judge Lord Pentland ordered him to serve at least 10 years, and imposed a life-long restriction order on Yates: he was 'an exceptionally high level of danger to women and society', the judge said. Six months earlier, in October 2009, in a tree-lined park in Aberdeen, Yates had tried to murder a 60-year-old woman during an attempt to abduct and rape her two granddaughters, aged eight and two. As part of his sentence, Yates agreed to be chemically castrated. It was voluntary: after the judgement was passed, the serial offender – who carried out his attack just days after he was released from custody for an assault with a sexual element – was administered leuprorelin, a testosterone suppressant which reduces sexual drive and arousal. At the time, public response to the decision was positive – the 'twisted paedophile' would face something that looked more like 'real justice', then, many said. Did it work? Difficult to say: in December, Yates died in custody at HMP Glenochil, aged 44. Yates was the last publicly reported person in the UK to undergo chemical castration – the use of anaphrodisiac drugs to reduce libido and sexual activity – yet the practice remains a topic of hot debate. This week, justice secretary Shabana Mahmood announced plans to expand the use of chemical castration for serious sex offenders, including a proposal for mandatory treatment, as part of a broader sentencing reform aimed at reducing prison overcrowding. The practice – not to be confused with surgical castration – has been legally available on a limited, voluntary basis since 2009, when a pilot at HMP Whatton in Nottinghamshire began. Within just a few years, around 100 prisoners had participated in the programme, which a spokesperson at the Ministry of Justice said at the time was being 'used in conjunction with other approaches to managing the risk of sexual offending'. Now, as a result of the independent sentencing review published this week, the government is set to roll out the pilot for sex offenders in 20 prisons across the country. Mahmood said she is 'not squeamish' about the decision to use 'medication to manage problematic sexual arousal', adding that she is 'exploring whether mandating the approach is possible'. What was once a rare, voluntary treatment may soon become a formalised tool of sentencing reform, aimed not only at rehabilitation but also at reducing the strain on a chronically overcrowded prison system. In theory, it could mean that men like Yates – sexual predators deemed a 'menace' to women and children in society – would automatically be subjected to chemical castration in an attempt to control the population of sex offenders in England and Wales. Some say it's a necessary evolution. Physical punishment like this, or like corporal punishment in prisons, is the antidote to a soft justice system too preoccupied with the human rights of those it deals with for its own good. When public figures like Nigel Farage make inflammatory calls to reignite debate on the use of the death sentence in the UK, you can usually find conversation about compulsory castration not far behind. When it comes to dealing with serious offenders – especially when faced with the despair of their victims – there's a tendency to be very simplistic: we want an eye for an eye. But there are also studies that show success rates of chemical castration. One trial of a drug named degarelix in Stockholm, Sweden, reported on by Sky News, found that just two weeks after the first injection, men living in the community had a significantly reduced risk of committing child sexual abuse. However, how this was measured exactly is not fully clear – and the study was conducted on just 52 men, a tiny pool to pin decisions with such high potential repercussions on. Others say that chemical castration offers rehabilitation and support to long-term psychological therapies and, when undertaken in the correct way, voluntary castration even 'empowers' perpetrators to take responsibility for their own behaviour. It is, these advocates say, a way of allowing offenders back into society with 'less risk' when offered as a condition of early release. And – crucially, let's not forget – it's much cheaper than rehabilitating them in prison. Yet, there's something instinctively troublingly intimate about the state altering a person's body chemistry – even with their consent; critics of the practice question how 'voluntary' consent really is inside a prison. It's not a new concept, of course – during a particularly dark period in the mid-20th century it was used as a form of punishment for homosexual acts, notoriously in the case of Alan Turing, a pioneering codebreaker during the Second World War who was convicted of 'gross indecency' due to his homosexuality in 1952. He took his own life two years after choosing the option of imprisonment or chemical castration – the science around it is still shaky. Violence and harm can't be attributed to a simple hormonal imbalance; misogyny and an impulse to control women can't be medicalised A lot of the studies are lacking in long-term follow-ups and don't account for important variables like the natural decline of libido with age, or even what other tools – like therapy – are being used alongside the medication, which generally consist of two drugs: anti-androgens, that reduce testosterone, and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs – such as Prozac, citalopram and sertraline; common antidepressants). They're taken alongside psychiatric work that reportedly targets other causes of sexual offending – like the desire for power and control. And it's the latter that really feels like the point. Libido alone is rarely, if ever, the cause of sexual offending – not all crimes are driven by desire. Violence and harm can't be attributed to a simple hormonal imbalance; misogyny and an impulse to control women can't be medicalised. Sexual violence in society isn't contained in science – it's in deeply embedded attitudes. To suggest otherwise could be the beginning of a dangerously slippery slope. Similarly, formalising chemical castration puts other forms of medical intervention into the frame too, potentially leaving doors open to tiptoe towards ideas like forced sterilisation for those with severe mental illnesses, or medicine as a punishment. In the long term, this type of castration causes many side effects like weight gain, increased cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis – what's more, the effects of some of these drugs, particularly SSRIs, can induce depression and suicidal ideation. Though it's deemed 'reversible', it can leave lasting damage to fertility. Britain is hardly the first to wrestle with this dilemma. In parts of the United States, chemical castration is either encouraged or required for repeat offenders. In California, it's a condition for parole. Poland introduced mandatory chemical castration for child sex offenders in 2009, prompting criticism from the European Union, while Scandinavian countries like Sweden and Norway take a more therapeutic approach. Chemical castration is available, but only as part of comprehensive therapy, and never mandated. Human dignity, they argue, must come before public retribution. Chemical castration is no longer a footnote or a quietly ongoing trial in Britain, but a political statement. As the proposal is debated, uncomfortable questions are likely to be raised. Yates – who told police that he had gone out that day 'looking to find some children to have sex with' – was 'prepared to try anything to overcome his problems, which have blighted his life,' his barrister told the court, 15 years ago. Was it chemical castration that could have prevented his heinous crimes? Shabana Mahmood wants us to think about that and the answer may be more complicated than first thought.
