FM faces pressure in trans con case
Mum says she won’t let Isla Bryson see little girl again
Nicola Sturgeon is facing demands to step in and prevent the transfer of a transgender prisoner to a female prison.
Tiffany Scott, who stalked a 13-year- old girl while known as Andrew Burns, is understood to have had a request for a transfer to a women’s jail rubber-stamped.
But Scottish Conservative equalities spokeswoman Rachael Hamilton said Scott, who has attacked female staff while in a men’s prison, should not be moved.
She said: “The fact that such a violent and dangerous criminal is set to be transferred to a women’s prison is absolutely appalling.
“It is clear that Tiffany Scott continues to present a grave risk to the safety of any women that come in contact with them – even trained prison staff.
“Nicola Sturgeon has repeatedly tried to reassure the Scottish public that the Scottish Prison Service’s risk assessment would protect women from predatory men, yet the process is clearly not fit for purpose if this dangerous offender has been approved for transfer to a women’s jail. Women’s
safety must not take a backseat to the w ishes of v iolent criminals.
“Nicola Sturgeon has already U-turned under public pressure to belatedly remove double rapist Isla Bryson from a women’s jail. She must now intervene to block the transfer of this violent individual before it takes place, or knowingly r isk the safety of some of Scotland’s most vulnerable women.” A Scottish Pr ison Ser v ice spokesman said : “We do not comment on individuals.” In 2010 Scott, while still Burns, attacked a nurse during an escape from a Cheshire hospital while under detention, throwing roof tiles at police during a siege on the roof.
The prisoner is serving an indefinite sentence and is subject to an order for lifelong restriction, meaning they will only be released when no longer considered an “unmanageable risk to public safety”.
The mum of one of Isla Bryson’s three children has vowed never to let the rapist see their daughter.
The vulnerable woman said they met on a dating site and told how she had been left traumatised after her ex raped two women before changing gender. She revealed that police and social workers warned her to stay away from her former partner, who was then known as Adam Graham.
The mum, 42, said: “My daughter will never know anything about her father. She has never asked about her dad and I won’t tell her who he is or what he has done.
“I don’t want people knowing her dad has been convicted of rape and is now living as a woman.
“When I was six months’ pregnant, I had a meeting with social work and the police who told me to steer well clear of Adam. They basically said plain out that he was really not a very nice guy.
“His name isn’t on her bir th certificate. He has no claim to her and I want it to stay that way.”
The full-time mother has told how she met Bryson, who was 25 at the time, on online dating site Plenty Of Fish in January 2017.
The pair dated for four months, during which time Bryson, then living in Clydebank, confessed he was due to go on trial for rape but claimed he was innocent.
After the pair split, the mum-of-four from Port Glasgow discovered she was pregnant with his child.
She said: “One day he told me he had something to tell me and said, ‘I’m up on a rape charge but I didn’t do it.’
“We split up. He was constantly messaging other women behind my back and I couldn’t trust him. A few weeks later I found out I was pregnant. I went to his house but he wouldn’t answer the door.
“In the end I had to shout through the letterbox, ‘ I’m pregnant.’
“He never opened the door. He just shouted back, ‘So what do you want me to do about it?’
“I know I was warned not to go near him but when my baby was six weeks old I took her to his house to let him see her. He picked her up, looked at her and put her down again.
“He never said a thing and that’s the only time he has ever seen her.”
In a chance meeting in 2020 the woman bumped into him in a supermarket near his Clydebank home when he confessed to her he wanted to change gender. He was dressed as a man.
She said: “I was in Asda doing my shopping and he came up to say hello.
“I was surprised to see him after so long. He said to me, ‘ I’m going to be becoming a woman.’ I thought he
was joking. I didn’t really know what to say.”
The woman said Bryson moved to Saltcoats, in North Ayrshire, and started sending her photographs of him dressed as a female.
She claims she was also sent photographs of NHS letters stating that he was await ing gender reassignment surgery.
She said: “He used to send me pictures of himself dressed as a woman. He would be in full wig, a dress with his big false nails on.
“He told me he used to go to charity shops and buy handbags and bras. He even bought gel inserts to put in his bras.
“He would walk about like that in public and once even got badly beaten up for it.
“He sent me two pictures of NHS letters showing he was waiting for gender transition surgery.
“I couldn’t get my head around it. I just said if that’s what you want too do, then do it but I don’t want to knownow about it. I deleted everything.”
When she heard about the rape case, she said: “I put on the news andnd I couldn’t believe it. I know now I neverever really knew him. I don’t ever wantt my daughter seeing him. I won’t everer let that happen.”
She revealed that the rapist has two other children, a nine-year-r- old son with a former partner and another daughter with a differentrent woman.
She said she is glad her former loverover is no longer in a women’s jail.
She said: “All I know is he iss a rapist. He was found guilty, so no matter how he is dressed, he shouldn’t be put in a women’s jailil with a lot of vulnerable women.”
Bryson has been remanded in custody until February 28 for sentencing.