A Scottish man who identifies as transgender has been found guilty of raping two women, and will be held in a women’s prison for up to a month while awaiting sentencing.
Adam Graham, 31, began identifying as a woman after he committed the sexual offenses and now goes by “Isla Bryson.” He has been referred to with feminine pronouns both in court and in UK media coverage, and court documents had charged Graham with raping the women with “her penis.”
The verdict was reached today by the jury, and presiding judge Lord Scott remanded Graham in custody until sentencing on February 28 in Stirling. It has been reported that Bryson will initially be held in a specialist unit at the all-female Cornton Vale prison.
During the trial, Graham was called “vulnerable,” and the defending counsel argued that the he was “in no way a predatory male.” Defending him at the High Court in Glasgow, lawyer Edward Targowski was heard comparing Graham to his victims, claiming that all three individuals involved in the case should be considered “vulnerable,” including the rapist.
“If you look at the circumstances, you do not have a predatory male — you have somebody who is vulnerable,” he added.
Targowski also leveraged Graham’s self-declared transgender status in his defense, as reported by The Daily Mail, and told the court: “She is transitioning from male to female gender. If you accept that evidence, that she is transitioning, that she is aiming to continue on that path to becoming female gender, that goes a long way to acquitting her of these charges.”
Giving evidence in his own defense on Monday, Bryson claimed to have known he was a woman from the age of just four years old, and began taking female hormones two years ago when he was 29. He said that at the time of the first sexual assault, he was “struggling” with his sexuality “and having issues emotionally.”
The assaults that Graham has been found guilty of took place in Clydebank in 2016, and in Drumchapel, Glasgow, in 2019. He denied all charges and lodged special defenses claiming the sexual assaults were consensual.
The first assault is said to have happened on September 16, 2016, in Clydebank. Graham reportedly pulled down the woman’s clothing and restrained her, forcibly penetrating her.
According to the woman, Graham told her “not to disclose to anyone” the details of the assault. In an attempt to secure her silence, Graham reportedly went on to threaten the victim’s family.
Three years later, on June 27, 2019, Graham raped a second woman at a Glasgow residence. After having engaged in consensual sexual activity, the victim says, Graham became sexually violent and assaulted her. The court heard that Graham bit the victim, lay on top of her and restrained her, and went on to rape the woman “to her injury.”
In his closing speech to the court on Monday, advocate depute John Keenan asserted that both accounts given by the women were “credible and reliable,” adding that in the 2016 incident, the accused “was too strong and she couldn’t push him off, she said no, loudly, on multiple occasions.”
Keenan continued to say that “she was scared and sick to the stomach about what had gone on” and that “she was worried about her family” on account of the threats Graham had made to her.
Speaking on behalf of the woman involved in the second assault charge, Keenan said: “There is clear evidence from the complainer there was not consent. She told the accused to stop, that she couldn’t breathe, that she didn’t want to. The accused did not stop. That account is corroborated by her distress.”
Graham is the third Scottish transgender rapist to make headlines in the past week.
On January 15, a serial rapist who targeted women in changing rooms and restrooms reportedly had begun identifying as transgender and sought a transfer to a women’s prison. Jonathon Mallon, 40, was sentenced to life in prison in 2014 on a slew of rape charges. He has now begun referring to himself as “Charlene” and has allegedly been “bragging” that he will be in a women’s prison by the spring.
On January 21, it was revealed that an incarcerated sex offender who abducted and raped his care worker had begun claiming to identify as a “woman,” and demanding cosmetics and a transfer to a women’s institution.
Albert Caballero, 50, is currently detained at Edinburgh Saughton Prison, where he has served half of his sentence and is eligible to apply for parole. But Caballero is reportedly now boasting to fellow inmates that he will be transferred to a women’s prison prior to his release after abruptly claiming a transgender identity. In addition to now calling himself “Claire,” Caballero has been demanding red lipstick from the prison.
Cornton Vale, the women’s prison where Graham will be detained, attracted a crowd of protesters in December after Reduxx revealed that a transgender serial child sex offender named Katie Dolatowski had been sent there after violating the conditions of his sex offender registration. Dolatowski, 22, was placed in a women’s institution to serve a 4-month sentence despite his long history of sex attacks against young girls in public facilities.
In 2018, Dolatowski was caught filming a 12-year-old girl in a women’s bathroom at an Asda supermarket in Fife. Dolatowski, who stands nearly 6’5, was spared prison at the time, and, the following month, he targeted another young girl for sexual assault in the restroom of a Morrisons supermarket in Kircaldy, Fife.
Despite his two attacks on children, Dolatowski avoided jail for the incidents, and was instead handed a three-year community order. The following year, he was found to have been housed in a women’s hostel on the basis of his self-declared gender identity, prompting outrage from the women residing there.
UPDATE 1/26/23: The decision to house Graham in a women’s prison ahead of sentencing has been reversed, according to the BBC. Graham was moved to the men’s wing of a male prison earlier today.
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