27 October, barrister Nicholas Wragg told a court that the "clang of a prison door should never be pleasant", but for his client, it was "extraordinarily frightening". Tara Hudson was in an all-male prison: HMP Bristol - capacity 600.
Wragg told the Bristol Crown Court that prison should have a "sobering effect" on inmates, but for Hudson it was "unrelenting and frightening". That very day, he said, other inmates had taunted her, shouting: "Tara, Tara, show us your tits."
Hudson, a transgender make-up artist who was previously known as Raymond Aaron David, was locked up with men because she didn't have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). Prisons assign inmates to facilities based on the gender recorded on their birth certificate, or on a GRC. The certificate alone costs £140, not including the price of medical and psychiatric reports required to obtain it.
Vicky Thompson, 21, and Joanne Latham, 38, didn't have a Gender Recognition Certificate either. Both died in suspected suicides this month while jailed in all-male prisons. Read more via Huffington Post