Scots trans killer refused UK’s f irst sex swap in prison
A TRANSGENDER murderer has been refused a sex-swap operation while behind bars – after a surgeon declined to carry it out.
Paris Green, 29, is serving a life sentence for her part in torturing a man and beating him to death.
When she was convicted in 2013 she was known by her birth name, Peter Laing, but now lives as a woman in prison.
Green had hoped to become the first prisoner to undergo gender reassignment surgery while serving a jail term.
The prison service approved the controversial procedure – which was to be funded by the NHS but performed at a specialist private clinic – and even arranged for her to meet the surgeon.
However, Green has now revealed that the surgery has been blocked after the surgeon said the clinic was worried about the impact on other patients of having a murderer on the wards.
Green said the surgeon also expressed concern about the publicity that the clinic would attract for carrying out gender reassignment in such a high-profile case.
Speaking from HMP Edinburgh, Green said she now expects to complete her life term without having the operation.
She added: ‘The surgeon was worried about whether other staff and patients would feel safe.
‘He seemed to think it was inevitable that there would be a leak from the prison, or prison staff, and that my travel plans would become public.
‘He said it could generate the kind of publicity the clinic didn’t want.
‘He wasn’t quite saying, “I won’t do it”, but everything he did say pointed to that and I felt the hope draining out of me.
‘I’d been totally focused on becoming a woman. Since I realised at 15 that I should have been a woman all along, I’d never doubted I would go all the way and have the surgery, so I’m pretty devastated.’
Green began to identify as female in 2011. In 2013 she was jailed for life for killing Robert Shankland, 45, who was lured to her flat in Glenrothes, in Fife, by Green and two accomplices.
Mr Shankland was tied up and tortured for hours, beaten cruelly and sexually assaulted with a rolling pin. Judge John Morris told Green and her co-defendants at the trial: ‘It beggars belief you could act towards another human in this way. You left the victim, even in death, without any dignity.’
In prison Green asked to have full gender reassignment surgery.
The Scottish NHS usually sends patients to the private Nuffield clinic in Brighton for the procedure. Green was approved for the surgery more than two years ago, having lived as a woman and taken female hormones for several years.
The surgeon met her in March last year in prison and she had hoped the operation would follow in August or September.
Green said: ‘I started to believe that I could eventually walk to freedom already a woman.
‘Now that it’s been taken away from me, I’m struggling.
‘I have to choose every day whether to continue fighting for the future I should have had, and it’s getting harder and harder.
‘I’m not suicidal. But sometimes I find myself praying for death.’
Green said she now believes her difficult early years, and her confusion at being a woman in a man’s body, drove her to crime.
She said: ‘I know people won’t accept this, and I’m not asking anyone to care about me, but I’d had a really awful childhood and I was totally messed up.
‘I was beaten with a belt for ridiculous things. I spent time in care, I never had any stability and because I’m dyslexic people treated me like I was stupid.
‘I was already carrying a lot of anger inside me before I realised I should have been a woman, and that made me more angry because I wondered if I’d have been a different person if I’d been a woman.
‘I’m not going to make excuses because there are none. I regret what I did, and I’m sorry for it every day of my life.’
A spokesman for the Scottish Prison Service said it was ‘not appropriate’ to comment on individual prisoners.
A spokesman for Nuffield Health said: ‘We understand and respect that some people may have complex needs or circumstances and therefore, on a case-by-case basis, risk assessments may be carried out prior to admission.
‘The risk assessment is based on all the information provided to us, taking into consideration staff, patients and visitors that could potentially be at risk.’
‘Worried about whether others would feel safe’