A transgender serial pedophile is being sent to a women’s prison in the United Kingdom following a conviction on 30 charges related to the sexual abuse of 7 children.
John Robert Dixon, 58, carried out abuse against five girls and two boys from 1989 to 1996, the youngest victim being 7 years old at the time. In 2004, Dixon began identifying as a woman named Sally Anne.
In July, a jury found Dixon guilty on 30 counts of indecent assault and indecency with a child for what was described as a campaign of sexual abuse against the seven victims. According to the Daily Mail, case prosecutor Ryan Richter labelled Dixon a “brazen and callous sexual predator” who exploited young males and “cultivated a toxic relationship” with the female victims.
The pedophile preyed upon children he had come to know through family connections, grooming them into trusting him. Some of the children were abused for months at a time, with Dixon victimizing them in his lock-up garage or caravan.
In 1997, Dixon was jailed for six months for the sexual abuse of one teenage boy, but it wasn’t until 2019 that Sussex Police launched a full-scale investigation into additional abuses after yet another victim came forward.
Today, a Judge at Lewes Crown Court declared that Dixon would be sentenced to serve a minimum of 12 years in custody before he could be eligible for parole. But, to the outrage of some, Dixon will be serving his time in a female prison. This is despite the fact Dixon does not have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) — a document indicating a person has legally changed gender.
While GRCs are not expensive nor difficult to get, they do require an individual meet certain qualifications before being eligible, including that they have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.
As a result of his lack of a GRC, Dr. Kate Coleman said the news of Dixon’s placement at HMC Bronzefield in Ashford “came as a shock.”
Coleman is the director of Keep Prisons Single Sex, a campaign group focused on advocating for prisons to be segregated by sex, not self-declared gender identity. She says that, as of the latest data, less than 1% of trans-identified male inmates without GRCs are housed in women’s prisons, while over 90% of those who have a GRC are.
“This seemed to signal a real shift in allocation, meaning that it was now very unlikely that someone without a GRC would be held in a women’s prison,” Coleman told Reduxx, noting that the standard appeared to indicate that male convicts with a history of violent or sexual crimes would not be sent to a female institution unless they had a GRC. She added: “This seemed to be some cause for optimism.”
As a result, Coleman expressed confusion by the decision to send Dixon to a women’s prison.
“This person has a prolific history of serious sexual offences against children and has received a lengthy prison sentence. Despite his convictions, he has been sent to a women’s prison where he will serve his sentence alongside women, many of whom have themselves been the victims of child sexual abuse.”
Coleman pointed out that HMP Bronzefield also houses young offenders who have particular vulnerabilities.
According to Keep Prisons Single Sex, 72% of incarcerated women are non-violent offenders. 23% of women are also first-time offenders, and half of incarcerated women report having been the victim of physical or sexual abuse as a child.
“I am horrified that the prison service has chosen not to include Dixon amongst the 99% of [trans-identified males] with no GRC who are held in the male estate.”
As of November 2021, there was only one trans-identified male without a GRC held in the female estate.
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