Row as trans killer's stays in women's jail after crime against female officer (2025)

Paris Green admitted culpable and reckless conduct towards a woman - now campaigners say Scottish Prison Service is breaking its own rules and must throw the murderer into a male jail

Campaigners are demanding the removal of a notorious trans killer from the women’s prison estate after they were convicted of a crime against a female officer.

It has emerged that torturer Paris Green has been allowed to remain housed at the women’s wing at Polmont jail in Falkirk after admitting the crime in court.

This is despite SPS rules stating that any trans prisoner deemed to be a danger to women must be housed in the male estate.

Campaign group Keep Prisons Single Sex claim the SPS is breaking its own rules.

The debate arose after Green, who was born Peter Laing, was charged with assaulting a female officer at HMP Edinburgh by forcibly pushing a door in August 2023.

Green pleaded guilty to an amended charge of culpable and reckless conduct at Edinburgh Sheriff Court last month and was admonished.

But the conviction has led to claims that Green is a risk to women. Such trans prisoners have been told they can expect to be moved into male prisons.

The killer was handed a life sentence in 2013 for the murder of Robert Shankland, 45, and ordered to serve 18 years before applying for parole.

KPSS spokesperson Dr Kate Coleman said: “The SPS policy states that any trans woman who has been convicted of Violence Against Women or Girls is not eligible for allocation to the female estate.

“Following this conviction for reckless and culpable conduct, Paris Green should no longer be held in a women’s prison and should be transferred to the male estate.

“It is extraordinary that this man, convicted of murder and sexual torture, should ever have been in a women’s prison.

“That he remains there, in violation of the SPS’s own policy, is an outrage.”

A spokesperson for the For Women Scotland group also reacted furiously to the news that Green is still in the female estate.

The spokesperson said: “The news that Green is still in the female prison population is a damning indictment of the SPS and shows that they never had any intention of protecting vulnerable women in prison from violent men who adopt a trans identity.

“Green caused harm to a female officer and is a danger to all the women in Polmont - whether they are guards or inmates.

“How dare the SPS claim to support the safety and wellbeing of all in the prison population when we now have clear evidence that the demands and desires of trans-identified male prisoners comprehensively trumps women’s safety?”

The spokesperson said that legal action could follow, after claims that UK law may be breached, adding: “Ironically, the SPS may find themselves in the dock if they continue to flout the Equality Act and recklessly put women in danger.”

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) policy on transgender inmates came into force in February last year.

It states that a trans individual will only be placed in an establishment that matches their affirmed gender “when staff have enough information to reach a decision that a trans individual can be safely accommodated”.

It also states that “any transgender woman with a history of violence against women and girls and who presents a risk to women and girls will not be placed in the women’s estate”.

Green and two accomplices invited victim Robert Shankland to a party in the killer’s Glenrothes flat in March 2013. The trio then tied him up and tortured him for hours. They also sexually assaulted their victim.

Green was originally placed in Cornton Vale women’s prison in Stirling after claiming to be transgender - but was transferred within weeks to HMP Edinburgh amid claims of liaisons with other inmates.

A Scottish Prison Service spokesperson said: “Our policy on transgender people in custody supports the health, safety, and wellbeing of all people living and working in Scotland’s prisons, by taking an individualised approach to the admission, placement, and management of transgender people.

“We carefully consider a range of factors, including risk to and from an individual when making decisions about how best to manage and support them.”

The row over trans prisoners in Scottish jails exploded in 2023 when a double rapist changed his named from Adam Graham to Isla Bryson after being charged with rape.

Bryson was earmarked for detention at HMP Stirling - a women’s jail - but international condemnation forced a rethink and a review of SPS policy.