A man who identifies as transgender has been convicted of committing a rape just weeks after his release from prison for child sex offenses. Lexi-Rose Crawford, 24, had previously been given a four-year sentence for raping an underage girl that he groomed online.
Appearing in Bristol Crown Court on March 10, Crawford initially claimed to have been suffering “blackouts,” and said he could not recall the sexual assaults. Disturbingly, the formal indictment used in court referred to Crawford’s genitalia as “her penis,” according to The Daily Mail.
Despite Crawford’s plea of ignorance to his own crimes, the jury found him guilty of rape and sexual assault after less than two hours of deliberations. Crawford’s victim cannot be named for legal reasons, but is known to be particularly vulnerable. She told the court that Crawford came to their home in April 2019 to play computer games.
Describing the attack, the victim stated that Crawford had attempted to have her lay next to him before forcing himself on her.
“[Crawford] wanted me to lie down next to [him] and then tried to start… cuddling me, which I don’t feel comfortable with anyway. And then [he] started removing my clothes, which I didn’t want,” the victim said in court.
Despite repeated protests, Crawford removed the victim’s clothing and raped her. When asked why she didn’t fight back more aggressively, she said: “What could I have done without using physical contact to stop [him]? And then that could have been me in the wrong by using physical contact to stop [him].”
Responding to Crawford’s statements that he suffered from a lapse of memory, Prosecutor David Scutt pointed out that he had no medical basis to support this, and called the claim a “convenient excuse.”
Scutt asked Crawford point-blank: “It appears you can remember the good stuff, but you cannot remember the bad stuff. Are you pretending that you can’t remember?”
Following the guilty verdict, Crawford was released on conditional bail until his sentencing on May 10. He was referred to with feminine pronouns throughout the trial, and was addressed as “Miss” by lawyers and Judge Michael Longman throughout the four days of proceedings.
This is not Crawford’s first time being convicted of a grisly sexual attack on a vulnerable victim.
In 2017, Crawford was jailed after raping a teen girl he had met on the internet and groomed into his trust. At the time, Crawford was 18 and his victim was a 15-year-old girl he had met online. After developing a relationship, Crawford took the girl to a secluded area in the woods. Just before he assaulted her, he told the girl: “You are going to get laid.”
Following his release from prison in 2019, Crawford began using a female name and feminine pronouns. Just weeks later, he committed his latest sexual attack.
Should Crawford be handed a custodial sentence, it is believed he will be placed in a men’s prison as a result of recent prison policy reforms in the UK with respect to the handling of transgender prisoners.
On February 27, the Ministry of Justice and Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service announced new guidance for housing male prisoners who claim to identify as women. The updated framework states that “transgender women offenders no longer housed in women’s prisons if they have male genitalia or have committed sex crimes.”
The decision was made after ongoing controversy surrounding male sex offenders identifying as “women” and then demanding transfer into the female prison estate. In the month of January, four male sexual predators made headlines after identifying as women and either requesting of transfer to a women’s prison or being granted a move. The most notable case involved Adam Graham, 31, who began claiming to be a woman called Isla Bryson after he was charged with raping two women. Like Crawford, Graham was referred to with feminine pronouns both in the court and in UK media coverage, and court documents had charged Graham with raping the women with “her penis.”
Graham was found guilty of rape in both cases, and was initially green-lit to be held in a women’s prison for up to a month while awaiting sentencing. But the approval was short-lived after the incident sparked international outcry that led to the involvement of Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon. Sturgeon was ridiculed by critics and journalists for her refusal to call Graham a man, and, in February, announced that she would be resigning from her post. Sturgeon will remain as First Minister until a successor has been elected.
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