Mick Hartley

Well here's a thing. A man is accused of grooming and raping a young girl. The man has since transed, identifying now as a woman. And the report, in the Times, actually calls him a man, and uses male pronouns. Times are changing. 

A volunteer police officer groomed a vulnerable 12-year-old girl he met online before he repeatedly raped her, a court was told.

James Bubb, a Metropolitan Police special constable who now identifies as a woman named Gwyn Samuels, allegedly boasted about the “powers” he would gain as a 21-year-old trainee officer.

He and the girl began messaging on Omegle, a video-chat service in which users speak to strangers. The child, who cannot be identified, had told Bubb she was 16.

A jury at Amersham law courts was told that from the age of ten, the girl had identified as a transgender boy. She no longer identifies as male….

Bubb, now 27, asked the girl for nude photographs and videos. When they met in person, he sexually assaulted her in a park in west London and made her perform a sex act.

She was first raped in 2020, when she was 13 or 14.

The judge, though, is keen to protect the man's supposed dignity.

On Monday, Judge Jonathan Cooper said: “You are going to be addressed in this court, when it comes to proceedings as we are going along, as Ms Samuels and that’s because you are entitled to the proper respect for your dignity and that’s how you wish to be addressed. I will apologise in advance if that doesn’t always work.

“The matters we are concerned with relate to a period when you identified as a male, James Bubb … There are going to be witnesses who [will] speak about the case and behaviours that go back to 2018 … When they make reference to you and your actions, those witnesses will refer to the person they were engaged with at the time, and the name they and you were using.”

So at least the court will be spared talk of "her penis".