Sex-swap lets porn pervert dodge prison
https://teakdoor.com/images/smilies1/You_Rock_Emoticon.gif Laura Voyce received a suspended sentence
A transsexual who downloaded sickening child porn has been spared jail after a judge said she would not be safe in prison.
Laura Voyce, 20, who used to be called Luke, could have been locked up for nine months after being convicted of 14 counts of downloading indecent images of children.
But Judge Lesley Newton handed Voyce a suspended sentence after saying prison would be an ‘appalling experience’ for the sex offender. Voyce, who is in the process of having a sex change, is biologically a man but legally a woman.
Judge Newton said: “Frankly, you deserve to go to prison, but I can’t bring myself to send you to prison, entirely because I think prison would be an appalling experience for you. I do not see how you could be kept safe in a prison environment with the best will in the world on the part of those who run such establishments.”
She added: “I’m satisfied that you downloaded those images with a view to perverted sexual gratification. I take these offences very seriously; these are real children who are being abused so that people like you can look at them.”
Manchester Crown Court had heard how a stash of child porn was found on Voyce’s computer by police investigating another allegation. Four of the 14 images uncovered were at level 4, the second worst category of child pornography, and depicted youngsters being abused.
The images were discovered when Voyce was living in Withington, Manchester in 2008.
Voyce claimed she looked at pictures of partly-naked youngsters in a bid to come to terms with her troubled childhood.
Kay Driver, defending, told the court that if she were jailed Voyce faced being sent to a male prison. She said: “She’s clearly going to be extremely vulnerable in a male prison environment.”
She said Voyce, who now lives in Kirkby, Merseyside, still maintains her innocence,but has ‘an appreciation of the harm these offences cause’.
She added that her client had suffered ‘gender insecurities’ throughout her youth which had led to ‘substantial bullying’, ‘isolation’, and ‘disrespect for her own body which led her to be used by others’.
She said that Voyce, who is legally certified as female, was engaged to be married.
Handing Voyce a nine-month sentence suspended for a year and 100 hours unpaid work, Judge Newton ordered her to sign the Sex Offenders’ Register for five years and told her she would be jailed if she fell foul of the law again.
