A transgender woman has been found dead in a men’s prison in Leeds.
Advertisement
“HMP Leeds prisoner Vicky Thompson was found unresponsive on the evening of Friday 13 November”, the Prison Service said in a statement.
Hussain, who said Ms Thompson was “essentially a woman”, had asked the judge to give the “vulnerable” woman a lighter sentence if sent to a male prison.
It said the housing of transgender women in male prisons was an “abhorrent practice” that needed to come to an end.
Thompson’s boyfriend, Robert Steele, had spoken to her a day before she was discovered dead and booked a visit to the prison before her death, the BBC reported.
Ms Thompson had wanted to go to New Hall women’s prison in nearby Wakefield, said solicitor Mohammed Hussain.
Vicky had not undergone gender reassignment surgery, but she identified as a woman since her mid-teens.
Ms Thompson’s death comes just one month after transgender person Tara Hudson was initially sent to an all-male prison and later transferred to a female jail after a campaign calling for her to be moved.
“Our top priority is the safety and welfare of those in our custody and decisions relating to the location of transgender prisoners are taken by a range of people including psychologists, healthcare professionals and prison staff”.
The Prison Service said an investigation has been launched into the death by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.
A West Yorkshire police spokesperson said: “The death was classed as not suspicious and the coroner’s office was informed”.
“Staff and paramedics attempted resuscitation but she was pronounced dead at 8.48pm”. Despite having lived as a woman for the past six years, Tara was placed in the men’s prison, as her legal gender has not yet been altered.
Advertisement
More than 1,500 people signed a petition to support her plea to move and her story attraction national attention in the media.
