HMP Downview: Female Prisoners

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Paul]

That is absolutely right and the situation at HMP Downview is a great source of concern to me, which is why I am raising it with the Minister.

However, I want to move on to another issue. Once again, we have mixed-sex prisons—inclusion trumping safety, ideology winning out over reality, the feelings of a man holding more weight than the fears of many women. HMP Downview is a women’s prison in Banstead, near the Sutton border. It includes a wing, E Wing, specifically for biological males who identify as women. E Wing local policy sets out that it is for transgender women with or without a gender recognition certificate where risk indicates they cannot be safely held in the general women’s estate.

Over the course of the last year, between five and seven males have been housed in this wing. The Minister in the other place has said that these males are vulnerable. Before I look at the facts, I have a warning: some may find the data difficult as it yields an uncomfortable truth, but one that it is incumbent upon this House not to ignore.

In 2024, of the 245 transgender males—biological males with a trans identity—in prison, 151, or 62%, were convicted of a sexual offence. This is a far, far higher rate than that for the overall male prison population, which is only around 17%. And it is not a one-off either: a similar rate can be seen for 2023—a rate of 56%. So sexual offences are massively over-represented in this specific cohort of biological males.

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Ind)]

Will the hon. Lady make it clear again for anyone watching this debate that what she is saying is that those biological males—fully intact biological males—housed on the women’s estate are overwhelmingly convicted of violent sexual offences?

[Rebecca Paul]

I thank the hon. Lady for making that point. This is the reality of the data; we must not ignore what the data tells us. I did warn that it makes for an uncomfortable truth, but I can verify all of it and provide hon. Members with the data—I would not come to the House and give hon. Members incorrect data. Accordingly, we can conclude that the male transgender prison population poses a much higher risk to women and girls.

When people parrot the line that transwomen are not a threat to women, in the case of the prison population, I am afraid that that statement does not hold up. Zoe Watts, a biological male who identifies as a women, was jailed for eight years and six months after trying to use a 3D printer to make a gun that had the capacity to cause mass casualties. He was arrested by armed officers and a stockpile of weapons and materials was found at his home. There was a disturbing video on social media of him smashing a watermelon with women’s faces on it using a glass shard-encrusted baseball bat. He was put in HMP Downview.

Joanna Rowland-Stuart, a biological male who identifies as a woman, who stabbed his partner to death with a samurai sword, was put in HMP Downview too. John Dixon, now known as Sally, is a paedophile who was found guilty of 30 sexual assault charges involving seven children, some as young as six years old. He may have been held in HMP Downview too.

There are also more well known transwomen prisoners who have hit the headlines, such as Isla Bryson and Karen White, both incarcerated with women. Isla Bryson, from Scotland, was jailed for raping two women, but only after being charged did he come out as transgender. This dangerous rapist was remanded in a women’s prison. Holyrood, it seems, is even worse than Westminster for drinking the gender Kool-Aid. The case of Karen White is even more appalling. A transwoman convicted of rape and a knife attack, he was remanded in HMP New Hall, a women’s and young offenders’ prison, where he sexually assaulted two inmates. Thankfully, this dangerous predator is no longer in the women’s prison estate.

I hope hon. Members understand why I have grave concerns about such violent males continuing to be incarcerated with women. Not only is it against the law, the Supreme Court clarified back in April that single-sex provision must be based on biological sex alone, not anything else, but it is irresponsible and dangerous. Women prisoners deserve better than this. They should feel and be safe.

I now want to get into a bit more detail about E Wing within HMP Downview. Ministers have said many times in response to written questions that E Wing is not part of the general women’s estate, which is an odd statement for them to make. E Wing is a wing within HMP Downview, and HMP Downview is a women’s prison, ergo E Wing is part of the women’s prison estate. I have visited it and seen it with my own eyes.

Why might Ministers be at pains to say that it is not part of the general women’s estate? I believe they are using a play on words to obscure the fact that the single-sex provisions of the Equality Act are being breached. The current policy for managing transgender prisoners, introduced by the former right hon. Member for Esher and Walton when he was Justice Secretary, prohibits male prisoners who retain their birth genitalia or have any history of sexual or violent offences from being held in the general women’s estate, unless an exemption is granted by a Minister. So this ministerial characterisation that E wing is not part of the general women’s estate appears to be a tenuous effort to argue that they have complied with the policy and the Equality Act after all.

E Wing is physically located within a women’s prison. It is subject to the same policies and procedures as the rest of HMP Downview. It has the same Governor. Its funding comes out of the same pots. Its inmates are supported by the same health services. It beggars belief that Ministers think that we will believe that this wing is not part of the women’s estate.

Putting to one side this blatant breach of the Equality Act for now, let us consider whether the males held in E Wing are truly segregated from the rest of the female prison population. Again, Ministers keep saying that they are, but E Wing is like any other wing.