A transsexual killer who was born a man has won a legal battle to be transferred to a women’s prison.

The prisoner, who was also convicted of attempted rape, will be moved to a women’s jail within weeks after a High Court ruled that the refusal by Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, to transfer her violated her basic human rights and increased her long-term risk to society.

The prisoner is in her 20s and serving a life sentence for manslaughter and attempted rape.

She has had her womanhood recognised by law and her birth certificate has been amended accordingly, the High Court in London was told. She has had hair on her face and legs permanently removed by laser and has developed breasts after hormone treatment, but is forbidden from wearing skirts or blouses, or more than “subtle” make up, at the men’s prison where she is held on a wing for vulnerable prisoners.

Describing her as “a woman trapped inside a man’s body”, her barrister, Phillipa Kaufman, said the final step to her achieving full womanhood is gender reassignment surgery – but she had been told she cannot have it while in a men’s prison.

Doctors have refused even to consider her for the operation unless she fulfills the “living role requirement” – living as a woman for an extended period; so she has no hope of getting the surgery she so desperately wants unless moved to a women’s jail.

The barrister told Judge David Elvin, QC, that, although the woman has now served her minimum jail term, she has been told by the Parole Board that she remains an unnacceptable risk to the public, still has “a great deal of work to do” and is “nowhere near release”.

That, Miss Kaufman argued, was a direct result of her intense frustration at being unable to have gender reassignment surgery.

The prisoner, dressed in a dark blue blouse and striped jacket and wearing gold earrings, listened by video link as Miss Kaufman told the judge: “At the moment, she lives as a woman amongst men on a vulnerable prisoners’ unit and she can’t wear what she wants or more than subtle make up. They are an important statement of her femaleness.”

Oliver Sanders, for the Justice Department and the prison authorities, argued that the woman would be no more likely to be accepted by inmates at a female prison and that, if moved, she would have to spend long periods in segregation, at an extra cost of £80,000 per year.

But today Judge Elvin ruled that the Justice Department’s refusal to transfer her to a women’s jail amounted to a violation of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which enshrines the right to respect for privacy.

Regardless of any extra cost involved, the judge said that to block her progress towards full gender reassignment surgery was irrational and would only increase her risk to the public.

After the judge’s ruling, Miss Kaufman told the judge that the woman is now expected to be moved to a women’s jail within a few weeks.

The transsexual prisoner, referred to in court only as “A”, was convicted of manslaughter and jailed for five years after smothering her boyfriend with a pillow and strangling him with a pair of tights.

Her life sentence tariff, the minimum period she must serve before being considered for parole, expired in 2007. « A » was diagnosed as suffering from gender dysphoria and had been aware of her condition from an early age, the judge said.

The woman said in her evidence that when her gender was legally recognised it was “a reflection of how it should have been from the start”.

The judge said that her detention in a men’s jail had both scotched her desire to live fully “in role” as a woman – and thus qualify for a full gender reassignment – and had also had a “serious adverse effect” on her ability to take part in work aimed at reducing her risk status and moving towards release.

The judge issued a mandatory order requiring Mr Straw to transfer “A” to a women’s prison.

Lire l'actualité sur Times Online (Frances Gibb)

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