A woman who endured years of sexual abuse at the hands of her father has had her pleas to stop his early release from a UK prison denied. Ceri-Lee Galvin, 24, was sexually abused for nine years beginning from the age of eight by Clive Bundy. In 2016, Bundy was sentenced to 15 years in prison for his crimes, which included recording the assaults and sharing them online with other pedophiles.
Disturbingly, it was recently revealed that Bundy had begun identifying as transgender and had adopted the name Claire Fox while in prison. Bundy has now been approved for parole after serving seven years in prison – less than half of his original sentence, and a shorter time than the nine years of abuse Galvin suffered. Bundy will be released as a “woman.”
In March, Member of Parliament for Telford Lucy Allen mentioned Bundy’s case in the House of Commons while calling for convicted sex offenders to be barred from changing their names to evade the law. Allen used the details of Galvin’s ordeal while anonymizing her name as as “Joanna.” But the next month, Galvin revealed herself and issued a statement to the press condemning the decision to evaluate her father for parole under a new identity.
On May 4, Galvin submitted a statement to the parole board responsible for the decision in an attempt to appeal for reconsideration on the grounds that Bundy had not been rehabilitated and as such, the decision was “irrational and unreasonable.”
She decided to contest her father’s release from prison despite herself having been denied legal counsel, which would have been beneficial in lodging her formal objection.
Speaking with Reduxx, Galvin said: “I was told that one of the reasons I could contest his release was if the parole hearing was unlawful. But I don’t know if it was unlawful, because I wasn’t given any representation.”
On May 3, in a desperate effort to keep the public informed on what was happening, Galvin released a statement to social media imploring the parole board re-evaluate their decision to release her father.
“I am contesting the parole board decision to release this serious sexual offender because I am incredibly concerned that the true risk factors of releasing this offender have not been considered,” she wrote. Galvin pointed out that Bundy had declared his new “identity” in early 2022, following an altercation with another inmate in 2021.
“The altercation was considered sufficiently serious, which immediately stopped the consideration of a release into an open prison. Shortly after this altercation, the offender decided to change his identity, including his full name, completely disguising his former identity. The parole board has not connected these two events,” Galvin asserted.
“Further, the parole board has not considered the risk the new identity creates… This new identity would enable the offender to disguise his criminal record from society, making it easier to reoffend,” she added.
She also emphasized that her father had not been sufficiently rehabilitated and therefore elevates the risk that he may reoffend upon release. Bundy, Galvin says, wasn’t required to attend any accredited sexual offender programs, nor has he.
“How could a man who admits to finding children sexually attractive, and who has absolutely no regard for what the consequences are of abusing children, not be eligible for offender behavior programs, and then be considered for release?” she said.
Galvin further explained that as a result of this, his predatory behavior had become normalized in his mind and he seemed to be without remorse or understanding of the impact his abuse had on his family.
In the parole board’s decision, it was said that the circumstances of Bundy’s offending had been taken into consideration, and the suggestion was made that because he had targeted a family member, he would not pose a threat to other children.
Galvin objected to this assessment: “The board appears to have formed the view that an offender with a long record of targeting his own child for his own sexual gratification will not target children outside of his own family. Upon sentencing, the defense lawyer told the judge that ‘he kept it within his family and therefore was not a risk to the community.’ This was a flippant, ill-considered statement and was dismissed as such by the trial judge.”
But, despite her effort, on May 5, Galvin announced that her father’s release had been granted. Galvin said that she had been warned by her Victim Liaison Officer (VLO) that her objection to her abuser’s release would not be considered.
“I submitted at quarter-past four in the afternoon. I received the response just after ten in the morning the next day. In my eyes, that’s not even two working hours that they had considered my statement. That took me so much courage and so much thought to write, and it felt like, ‘Well, we don’t have to look at it, so we’re not going to,'” she told Reduxx.
In a chilling twist, the new identity Bundy has chosen for himself – Claire Fox – is the name of a female politician known for calling attention to safeguarding risks posed by gender identity ideology. Galvin, who describes her father as “manipulative,” does not believe this is a coincidence.
At the beginning of May, after The Daily Mail initially reported on Galvin’s situation and her father’s feminine name was published for the first time, Claire Regina Fox, Baroness Fox of Buckley wrote of how she was astounded to learn that “a convicted pedophile ripped off my name.”
Fox, who is a writer and lecturer, sits in the House of Lords for the Independent Party where she has used her position to oppose gender identity ideology. In an interview with Compact, Fox said she was “outraged” upon hearing that Bundy had taken her name.
“One commentator suggests that sex offenders, specifically pedophiles, select the names of well-known people so that an internet search will only turn up the famous person, and not them. Ceri-Lee suspects that it is no coincidence that he opted for a parliamentarian like me, who has argued that transgender activism endangers free speech and women’s rights. In other words, this is some sort of trolling,” Fox said.
However, Fox emphasized that Galvin was “the real victim” in the situation, and that identity theft can act as a cover for abuse. Due to legal restrictions surrounding names changes conducted on the basis of a gender identity, Galvin was only informed of her father’s new name because he had granted authorities permission to do so. Had he decided to withhold this, she may never have known that he had changed his identification.
Moreover, in an effort to protect her abuser, she was not permitted to know which prison he had been held in during his sentence, despite being a student paramedic who might potentially receive a call to a correctional facility.
Galvin told Reduxx that she is incredulous at the way her rights have been continuously neglected during the ordeal.
“It’s rubbish, because he has served less years than I was abused for, and I am still suffering now. The abuse didn’t stop just because he was arrested. I’m constantly reliving the memories of what he put me through, and trying to build relationships on completely broken trust. It doesn’t end. I’m nearly 25 and still having nightmares.”
She believes that since she has announced his new name to the media, he may choose to alter his identity again – but this time, without informing her. To make matters worse, Bundy will now be granted access to female-only spaces where young girls may be present under vulnerable circumstances due to his gender change.
“I have accepted my fate. The only trouble with me is, I will not be quiet. I will shout. I will do everything that I can to fight for something that I believe in. This doesn’t have to be somebody else’s fate. I want this law changed that allows serious criminals and sex offenders are able to hide behind ‘gender identity.’ I want victims to have equal rights.”
According to recent figures from a Freedom of Information Request submitted by the BBC, over 700 sex offenders have gone “missing” since changing their names through the process of deed poll, which takes approximately 15 minutes to complete, in the period between 2019 – 2021.
One lawmaker responsible for streamlining the system to ensure that trans-identifying individuals are not “outed” to the public is a man who himself identifies as a woman. Judge Victoria McCloud is Britain’s most senior public figure to have claimed a transgender identity and has been celebrated as a pioneer by LGBT campaigners.
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