Mother Pleaded Guilty to Avoid Returning to a Prison With Trans Inmates

A mother-of-four says she owned up to a crime she didn’t commit just to steer clear of returning to a Scottish prison with two trans inmates, locked up for murder and sexual assault. The Mail has the story.

Amanda Benson, 42, from Inverkip, Scotland, was imprisoned on remand at HMP Greenock with the two trans women – murderer Alex Stewart, 34, and sexual assaulter Laura Miller, 30.

Neither have had gender surgery or taken gender-affirming hormones, Mrs. Benson said. 

Stewart – previously known as Alan Baker – was jailed for 19 years for stabbing father-of-two John Weir, 36, to death after they met on a dating site.

The trans prisoner reportedly started dating a female child killer in HMP Greenock in 2020. 

Miller was jailed for almost two years in 2022 after he sexually assaulted a woman who had taken sleeping medication on multiple occasions in 2017 and even filmed one of the attacks, in which he made an offensive sexual remark about her.

Although he had committed the offence when he was in jail with Mrs. Benson, it was only in 2022 that he was convicted of that crime. In 2018, he was in Greenock Prison for a different unknown crime. 

Mrs. Benson revealed she was so terrified of being raped and impregnated by the murderer or sex pest that she had a contraceptive coil fitted at the prison run by the Scottish Government.

She told MailOnline: “I took a plea deal and plead[ed] guilty even though I didn’t do it. 

“It’s terrifying to be in there with them so [I did anything] to get out of there.

“I felt the threat that I could have been raped by these men and that could have led to me falling pregnant.

“They were both quite tall. One was very heavy. He dressed like a man. The other guy tried to wear sparkly jeans.

“Neither had had any surgery. They just said they were women and wanted to be in a women’s prison.

“We can’t leave. We are locked up with them, no matter what.” …

The cells at Greenock Prison don’t have showers in them, meaning women have to use communal showers.  

Rhona Hotchkiss, who was Governor of HMP Greenock until 2019, said: “We had three or four trans women in at once. It was a horrific situation.

“None of them had identified as trans before they came into prison.

“The behaviour was appalling. They were clearly, most of them, there for sexual reasons.”

She added: “Male staff are not allowed to go anywhere near those showers but trans women can.

“I knew of women who wouldn’t shower.” …

The Family Education Trust’s Lucy Marsh told MailOnline: “It is appalling that men who pretend to be women are allowed to be in female prisons. 

“The majority of women in prison have been the victim of domestic violence and sexual assault, and more than half experienced emotional, physical or sexual abuse as a child. 

“To put vulnerable women at further risk of abuse from predatory men is wilfully irresponsible and immoral.”

Worth reading in full.