Mick Hartley

You assumed, perhaps, that the days of violent men being housed in women's prisons north of the border were over, post Isla Bryson. You should have a word with Jayney Sutherley. She had her release from jail delayed by more than two years because of accusations of transphobia by a man housed – for murder – in the women's prison. She'd become the spokeswoman for a number of other worried female prisoners in HMP Greenock, raising concerns about their safety. And she paid a heavy price.

Alex Massie in the Times:

Under Section 38 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010, a person may be charged with “threatening or abusive behaviour” if they behave in such a manner in ways likely “to cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm” and that this behaviour is either intended to cause said fear or alarm or is “reckless” as to whether or not it would do so.

This is the charge Police Scotland levelled against Jayney Sutherley and of which she was acquitted in Greenock sheriff court last week. The 51-year-old was alleged to have behaved in a threatening and abusive manner towards Alexandria Stewart over a four-year period. The basis for this charge, the court heard, was Sutherley’s determination to refer to Stewart as “he” or “him”.

Since Stewart was formerly known as Alan Baker, Sutherley might have been guilty of being impolite but in point of objective, demonstrable, fact she was entirely correct. Stewart is a man and remains such even if he insists he is not. This is a matter of biological reality. If this is “transphobic” then the truth is transphobic.

As Baker, Stewart was convicted of murder in 2013 and subsequently jailed for life; Sutherley was convicted of culpable homicide and would have been eligible for parole in 2023 but for the case brought against her by Stewart. Prosecutors, however, produced no corroborating evidence against Sutherley beyond testimony offered by Stewart and his lover, Nyomi Fee, who is also serving a life sentence for murder.

The kicker to all this is that the offences were alleged to have taken place between 2019 and 2023, when Sutherley and Stewart were housed together at Greenock prison. Stewart claimed to be “highly mortified that she had outed me as trans to those who didn’t know I was trans”. You can believe this if you wish to but if so I have a number of lightly-used ferries for you to purchase.

This combination of personnel and circumstance suffices to make this a lurid and macabre affair of the kind even the darkest satirist might struggle to countenance. Yet it is all true and a reminder that in certain respects modern Scotland has thoroughly lost its mind.

These men are not just indulged by allowing them to serve time in a women's prison:

In the case of Stewart there is evidence, quite remarkably, that he and his partner Fee are granted indulgences far beyond those customarily afforded prisoners serving a life sentence. The pair appear to have been spotted openly indulging in what are coyly deemed “sex acts” with, we may only conclude, the prison authorities’ covert blessing. Some prisoners are more equal than others and those with post-conviction sudden-onset gender dysphoria (sic) are the most equal of all.

Eventually there will be a reckoning for all this and when it comes it deserves to be a thundering one.