The new Home Secretary Suella Braverman has made it clear that she wants the police to concentrate on catching criminals rather than wading in with the virtue signalling, and, good as her word, she's jumped straight in on the Sussex police trans row:
The home secretary condemned a police force last night that had warned social media users not to “misgender” a convicted paedophile who identified as a woman.
Suella Braverman accused Sussex police of playing “identity politics” just days after writing to chief constables telling them to reverse the perception that they care more about “woke” issues than tackling crime.
Sussex police had warned Twitter users who pointed out that Sally Ann Dixon, who was jailed earlier this month for abusing seven children, was formerly a man called John and was not legally recognised as a woman.
The force reported the case under the headline: “Woman convicted of historic offences against children in Sussex”.
Clare King, 65, a Labour councillor in Cambridge, responded to the police report by tweeting: “No. This is not a female crime.”
When another user highlighted King’s comment, the force responded: “Sussex police do not tolerate any hateful comments towards their gender identity regardless of crimes committed. This is irrelevant to the crime that has been committed and investigated.”
It then directed the user to its definition of a hate crime and added: “If you have gender critical views you wish to express this can be done on other platforms or your own page, not targeted at an individual.” ...
Braverman later tweeted that the force “have done well to put a dangerous criminal behind bars”. She added: “But they’ve got it wrong by playing identity politics and denying biology. Focus on catching criminals not policing pronouns.”
Dixon, 58, from Havant, Hampshire, was jailed for 20 years after being convicted of 30 indecent assaults on five girls and two boys aged from six to 15.
Ryan Richter, prosecuting, told Lewes crown court: “The defendant, living as a man in the late 1980s and 1990s, was a brazen and callous sexual predator. He exploited young males and cultivated a toxic relationship with female children, whom he systematically abused throughout their childhoods.”
A strange way of putting it. He was "living as a man" because he was a man. He is a man.
Dixon began transitioning to live as a female in 2004 but does not have a gender recognition certificate. The court heard Dixon was being sent to a women’s jail, despite not being legally recognised as a woman.
Nice for Dixon: he wouldn't be treated with the kindness and understanding he no doubt deserves as a trans woman if he was sent to a men's jail. And they tend not to like paedophiles. Not so nice for the women he'll be imprisoned with - but who cares about them?
Sussex police later apologised for their Twitter post and confirmed the offences had been recorded as committed by a man. The force added: “We recognise the rights of the public to express themselves freely within the boundaries of the law.”
Good for Suella Braverman.
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