Transgender woman Tara Hudson has been sent back to an all-male prison despite having a “terrifying” experience there.
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She was sent to HMP Bristol last Friday after being jailed by magistrates for 12 weeks for a bar assault because her passport says she is legally still a man.
According to the BBC, more than 140,000 people have signed petitions in support for her transfer.
A transgender woman who has been forced to serve her jail sentence in an all-male prison today lost a court appeal against the decision.
The 26-year-old was sent to HMP Bristol, a men’s prison in southwest England, where her lawyer, Nicholas Wragg, said she was “locked in a cell 23 hours a day”. It should have a sobering effect on a person.
He said: ‘Ms Hudson has had an very bad time – she has found it unrelenting and frightening.
He said she had even been taunted as she left prison to come to court by other inmates shouting “Tara, Tara, show us your t***”.
The court heard that Hudson headbutted the manager of Be At One bar in Bath, Christopher Dyer, on 26 December previous year.
Recorder Sellick said the appeal was dismissed after it was ruled that Hudson had a “worrying criminal record” and that the bar assault had breached a conditional discharge given just three weeks earlier.
Her barrister Mr Wragg told an appeal hearing that Hudson had suffered from psychotic symptoms since 2009 – and highlighted a Probation Service report saying that a “custodial sentence would have a detrimental effect”.
But the judges urged “sensitive consideration” of where Hudson should be held.
Speaking outside court today, her mother Jackie Brooklyn described the decision as an “outrage”, adding: ‘She is being treated terribly by the system.
Mr Dyer needed £1,500 worth of dental surgery following the attack.
The court also heard that Tara had eight convictions involving 15 offences, including battery, assaulting a constable and possessing an offensive weapon. “She looks like a woman”.
“There are much better ways Miss Hudson can be dealt with to the benefit of her and the community”.
“About 30 demonstrators gathered outside the court and waved placards with slogans such as “trans lives matter” and “#iseetara”.
“She was only given clean underwear yesterday, before that she was wearing the same clothes she went to prison in”.
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She added: “Her life in Bristol prison has been utter hell and she is constantly being harassed”.
