A transgender predator has been sentenced to 100 months in prison after sexually texting a child with mental health issues just days after being released from prison for committing his second rape.
Joshua Bate, a biological male who identifies as a woman, was sentenced on Wednesday of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, the Daily Mail reports.
According to the prosecutor, Bate had travelled to Durham, UK to stay with a friend. Children were present on the premises, and Bate began to play with a young girl who is reported to have mental health concerns. Bate took the girl’s number, and later that night while the rest of the house was asleep, began to text the girl sexual comments.
Amongst other sexual comments, Bate asked her if she wanted to “spoon” with him, and told her to keep their conversation private. But the girl, who was under the age of 13, told a trusted adult who promptly called the police.
During the police interview, Bate admitted to officers he was sexually attracted to children “of both sexes.”
When the incident occurred, Bate had just been released from prison after serving time for a 2020 sexual assault of a schoolgirl on a bus. Prior to that, he had been in jail for raping a woman in 2015.
Bate was sentenced to 100 months in prison, and given a lifetime registration on the sex offenders registry, as well as a lifetime harm prevention order which would prevent him from having contact with children.
Under current laws, Bate will be sent to a male prison but is free to request transfer to a female institution. But in a victim statement, the adult whose home Bate was staying in at the time of the grooming incident questioned his claim to trans identity, and referred to him by male pronouns, noting: “I feel like he wishes to change his sex and identity simply to hide what he is.”
Bate was referred to as a ‘female’ and presented with ‘she/her’ pronouns in most major media outlets.
According to Keep Prisons Single Sex UK, an activist group dedicated to advocating for the rights of incarcerated women, 60% of trans-identified male inmates in England and Wales have at least one conviction for a sex offense.
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