Mother of four chose to plead guilty to avoid going back to a prison with transgender

A mother-of-four, Amanda Benson, claimed that she pleaded guilty to a crime she did not commit to avoid returning to a prison that housed two trans inmates locked up for murder and sex assault.

Amanda Benson was imprisoned on remand at HMP Greenock with two trans women, Alex Stewart (previously known as Alan Baker) and Laura Miller. Alex Stewart was jailed for 19 years for stabbing father-of-two John Weir to death after they met on a dating site.

Laura Miller was convicted of sexual assault in 2022 after she sexually assaulted a woman who had taken sleeping medication on multiple occasions in 2017 and even filmed one of the attacks, in which she made an offensive sexual remark about her. Mrs Benson revealed that she was so terrified of being raped and impregnated by the murderer or sex pest that she had a contraceptive coil fitted at the prison run by the Scottish government.

According to Mrs Benson, neither of the trans inmates had gender surgery or taken gender-affirming hormones. She claimed that they were both quite tall and one was very heavy. One of them dressed like a man, and the other tried to wear sparkly jeans. Neither had had any surgery. They just said they were women and wanted to be in a women’s prison.

Mrs Benson felt threatened by the two trans convicts and pleaded guilty to a crime she did not commit to avoid having to be imprisoned with them. She said that she felt the threat that she could have been raped by these men, which could have led to her falling pregnant.

HMP Greenock in Scotland has 54 cells for women. While Mrs Benson was there, two of these had trans women in them. Rhona Hotchkiss, who was Governor of HMP Greenock until 2019, said that they had three or four trans women in at once, and it was a horrific situation. None of them had identified as trans before they came into prison. The behaviour was appalling, and they were clearly, most of them, there for sexual reasons. Male staff are not allowed to go anywhere near those showers, but trans women can. Mrs Benson said that she did not expect to be showering with men, not in gyms, not anywhere, especially not in prison.

The cells at Greenock Prison do not have shows in them, meaning women have to use communal showers. It is one of the easiest places for someone to physically or sexually assault you. There are no cameras in the showers.

Mrs Benson said that she was on remand in HMP Greenock for seven weeks in 2018 after being accused of biting a police officer—a crime she pleaded guilty to, even though she denies it happened. She was on bail for a separate allegation of serious assault and also on a deferred sentence to be on good behaviour after holding a man by his hair when she attacked a man in October 2018.

The mother-of-four claimed he tried to sexually assault her and her friend while on a night out. Sheriff Andrew McIntyre ordered her to complete 228 hours of unpaid work in nine months, go to alcohol counselling, and remain under social work supervision for a year instead of going to jail.

Scotland’s chief prisons inspector, Wendy Sinclair-Gieben, branded building conditions at the 113-year-old HMP Greenock “appalling” in a report last summer. In a separate interview, she said a trans woman was “someone who has done the transgender process and is now seen as a woman” and that there’s never been an issue with trans people in Scottish prisons. Prison therapist Alison Blackler, 56, from the Wirral, told MailOnline that hearing that some of these trans women have a crime against women is a grave concern.

People being outraged can be perceived as transphobic, which makes it more complex. Generally, the main concern of people who object to the idea of unisex toilets is that it will lead to an increase in violence, particularly against women.