Andrew Miller appeals their sentence

[ScoldsBridle]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-south-scotland-68031537

Their defence claims the fact that they’re transgender means they got a tougher sentence. And they pleaded guilty so should be rewarded with a lesser sentence AND apparently they’re helping to support other transgender inmates in jail.

😀😀😀

A previously clean sentence apparently! Which I would say was more indicative of policing cuts than a lack of criminal history!! You don't suddenly amass all that child porn and commit all the other offences all at the exact same time. He is clearly deprived and it's a miracle that he didn't murder the child.

'Ms Dow claimed there were long periods of Miller's life where he did not cause any harm.

She added: "He is not a persistent offender."'

I read that as not exactly saying he had a clean record.

AM has behaved in a disturbing manner since he was a teenager & has certainly caused harm in his local community. This culminated in his abhorrent abduction & abuse of his victim which will affect her all her life.

There was a long period of my life where I didn't have any kids,that doesn't make me childless.

Thanks for your insight. Its worrying how men like this are allowed to escalate. I understand that men with paraphilias often do.

I think supporting trans prisoners sounds like a good future career for him.

To be clear, I mean providing peer support as another inmate in a men’s prison. Or the State Hospital at Carstairs, at a push. Ideally, from my pov, for the rest of his life, because he is obviously not someone who belongs near children (nor indeed women).

Are you serious about all these things Mark Jones is doing? Trainer for the ambulance service? HoL? I am speechless.

Entirely serious about both. It's mentioned here (lots of threads on mumsnet) and I've seen billing for other events.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5440153/Trans-convict-invited-speak-House-Lords.html

Tish has lots of information about Jones: https://gendercriticalwoman.blog/category/institutional-capture/

On a similar note, do you recall the Assistant Chief Constable of somewhere thanking Aimée Challenor (as then was) for the keynote address and training at an event the ACC had attended that day? Challenor was also involved with the Democrats and Obama's campaign, iirc.

Challenor and similar representatives like Jess Bradley (remember JB and the Students Union?) were able to speak to Maria Miller's Transgender Equality committee of course.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3350778-My-letter-to-NSPCC

It's a great shame he didn't get the help he needed as a teenager. If he had, all this could have been avoided.

Well, maybe. I don't know if I'm going to buy into it being a question of just needing 'help'.

He needed firm, clear boundaries. And society needs to make it very clear that its unacceptable to transgress others' boundaries or to treat women like subhumans. His crimes reek of misogyny.

I think the only thing that would 'help' men like this is very severe punishment for their crimes and a society less steeped in misogyny so they don't go down the route of thinking treating women and children as subhuman is acceptable or will be something they can get away with.

I don't think any amount of 'help' in terms of counselling or whatever would have done anything. Not while society is as it is. We need to get rid of abuse of women and children which is available online as "porn", have a much higher rape conviction and punishment rate. Have serious consequences for crimes such as flashing (e.g in the case of Wayne Couzens, if he'd gone to prison for that crime - where there was loads of evidence submitted by the MacDonald's staff - he wouldn't have been free to murder Sarah Everard).

Yes. I don't know what helps wrt abusers like this. Chemical castration can make things worse.

A different societal story

That men aren’t slave to their impulses and valuing self control rather than self indulgence.

Wish they could throw away the keys. Worth a pop from his brief's point of view, Scotland, hates children and women, so he might get a "sympathetic" hearing. I do belief this creep would have murdered that poor wee soul, if she hadn't of rescued herself. What a brave wee soul. I think of that wee girl often and wonder how she is doing.

You could go back even further and look at the early childhood indicators that are there in pretty much every serious sex offender, and ensure that these are picked up and effectively, thoroughly treated then. Go even further back; maternal health, DV in pregnancy, that's often there too.

And even with that happening, sadly there will still be some offenders that remain offenders regardless, and the best society can do is to safely contain them for their lifetime and prevent them destroying other people. The massive majority of people manage very challenging life difficulties without choosing to kidnap and sexually assault a child.

I can't see how it could have ended any other way if she hadn't been brave enough to try, thankfully successfully, to get help when she did. He knew he was a well known figure in the area, as soon as he let her go she'd have been able to give a good description, and the police would have been at his house fairly fast! He couldn't have just let her go when he'd finished having his fun, he isn't that stupid.

At sentencing my rapist 's solicitor tried to use the fact that he had had a terrible childhood himself and been sexually abused himself to justify his offences, as I'm sat there in the public gallery thinking well my childhood was terrible, and I was raped by the man in the dock but I don't have 3 convictions for raping children, nor have I ever felt the urge to sexually abused a child!

Whatever happened to these men when they were kids, (and I can feel sorry for the small boy they were who was being abused) as adults they have agency, they make choices, and they actively choose to put children through what they went through.

I'm sure earlier intervention when they were kids would have saved some of these men from their abuse and helped them to understand what happened, but I don't think it would necessarily prevent these men from going on to abuse children themselves.

Some men are just evil bastards who are only capable of thinking about their own gratification.

Sentences should be much longer for these cases, so I hope Mr Miller is not successful in getting his prison sentence reduced.

@Boiledbeetle 💐

@Boiledbeetle 💐well said and I'm so sorry for what you went through.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, justifies what this man did and I hope he stays in a male jail until the end of his life. Anything else would be an insult to his brave victim and a danger to other children.

I’m so sorry to read that this happened to you @Boiledbeetle 💐No imagining how you must have felt listening to that.

Sending love to you, Beetle. And to all who've been affected by these things.

The one lower down looks like he's been beaten up so I don't suppose either are particularly accurate.

I don't know about Scotland but I think is fairly normal to get time knocked off if you plead guilty early on as it spares the victim a lot of angst. I have no idea if that applies in Scotland or if the judge did take it into consideration. I suppose you'd need someone with experience of Scottish law to say.

I do think we need to make children wary of getting into cars with women as well as men, Myra Hindley was the one who persuaded victims to get into her car, I think Rose West was the same although the West victims were older I think other than their own kids.

Twenty years doesn't seem excessive from what I've read but as I said I don't know much about Scottish law.

If the judge didn’t stipulate that their sentencing took on board the fact that he got a pat-on-the-head for ‘owning up’, then they might have to reduce the sentence. How about they reduce the ‘on-licence’ part by 6 months - so he’s still in jail until he’s 73 and then on license for 7.5 years instead of 8? What’s stopping them doing that?

I wonder if the life-expectancy of long-term prisoners has been studied? They get 3 square meals a day. Aren’t allowed alcohol (I assume?). I guess they can still access drugs if they’re really intent on it. Plenty of time for yoga and Pilates and the gym. Does the lack of freedom have an impact on life-expectancy. Off to Google…

Either way he needs keeping off the streets and needs to be watched very closely on release.

I know reducing a sentence in exchange for a guilty plea can seem unfair but I think sparing a traumatised child from a trial is probably worth a bit of time, not sure how much but certainly something.