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.

Right decision!

Yeah some of that isn't good!

On Wednesday, in a written judgment issued by the court Lord Carloway concluded that the sentence given to Miller was appropriate.

However, he made comments about how Lord Arthurson was wrong to conclude that Miller’s way of dressing at the time of abduction was to persuade the child to enter his car.

In the judgement, Lord Carloway spoke of Miller’s past “fetishes” and his “psychological difficulties with gender.”

He added: “There are.. erroneous, or at least speculative, aspects to the sentencing remarks, which have been founded upon in the appeal.

“First, the judge regarded, as a significantly aggravating factor, the appellant’s female apparel as indicative of a pre- conceived intention to abduct a girl.

“The court cannot agree. By the time of the incident, the appellant was already dressing as a woman as a matter of routine, rather than for any more sinister a reason.

“What the judge does focus on is what he perceived as victim blaming in the appellant’s interviews with the risk assessor.
**
“Given the nature of the questioning, the appellant’s responses did not justify the conclusions which the judge reached in relation to his attitude to the complainer or his crimes.”

By the time of the incident, the appellant was already dressing as a woman as a matter of routine, rather than for any more sinister a reason.

Well isn't THIS judge assuming the opposite? He's assuming that dressing as a woman 'routinely' isn't sinister.

I would state that THIS judge is drawing a potentially erroneous conclusion. Paedophiles plan their crimes for years. He has no way of knowing why AM was dressing 'as a woman'. It might be entirely in order to lure young girls to him - this may very well not have been his first crime. It also shows a huge degree of biased sexism in what 'dressing as a woman' means. I dress in trousers and a t-shirt most days without makeup and sometimes with a very cursory hair brush. In that getup i.e. dressing like me (and hundreds of thousands of other biological women) I seriously doubt AM would get away with anyone reading him as female even from a distance and through a car window.

The way he was dressed was a sexist version of what 'dressing as a woman' means. Not how women actually dress.

The original judge was IMO far less biased and clear sighted in terms of the likely motivations of this convicted paedophile than this new, sexist judge. Just my opinion of course.

The comments about Miler & his kink in the last judgment are appalling. The judge in the original case was compassionate & clear about the harm Miller had done, how he behaved and why that poor wee girl got into his car, because “ she thought he was a woman”

They should be compelled to use unfiltered images of all of these "women" - and stand them next to a mannequin the size of their victims to show just how big and MALE they are.

Let's see how much public sympathy there is for them then. He kidnapped a little girl and sexually assaulted her for 27 hours. If she hadn't has such courage and self-possession, she could well have ended up dead.
She and her family are serving a life sentence.

The worst thing about male violence is it makes men look bad. I forget which rule of misogyny that is.

I expect it's implicit in all of them.

Does anyone know if the new judgement has been published? I can't find it on the website/twitter, but the former is quite hard to use.

The new judge's comments are interesting. It seems to be a point of contention whether Miller dressed as a woman to make it easier to abduct a child.

I wonder if this has anything to do with Shona Robison et al's assertion that there is no evidence anyone has ever pretended to be anything they're not to access victims?

Basically was the judge making a 'tru trans' argument, saying that Miller was not pretending to be a transwoman to make the abduction? That's probably true, Miller had been cross dressing for years.

Miller was definitely pretending to be a woman, though, which is of course the whole point of 'trans'.

Some of the women up here in Scotland made a cardboard cutout of one of the those men, “ Katie” who is over 6ft and it has been at various protests. Hopefully it will seen again soon, as we have a prison protest coming up soon here.

DirtyDuchess · 22/01/2024 19:37

Fucking Hell, I really wish I hadn't read that.

I too am very uneasy at this 2nd judges comments.
I've lived in the same place as Andrew Miller for the last 20 years.
He may not have dressed as a woman only to abduct the child but it is very likely to be a salient fact in why she got in the car. What matters is the effect on her, rather than his intent, which is very clear from the secret room built behind the wardrobe & the fact he planned to keep her for a week then 'go into business mode'. He has had a long history of antisocial behaviour & is entirely the type of person who will push any & every boundary until stopped by the law.

Full judgement is downloadable here.

CONTENT WARNING - CSA

https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/search-judgments/high-court

I really cannot stress enough that the judgement is very hard reading. Please avoid if you're not feeling robust.

I've copied and pasted below some parts from the judgement that seem relevant to 'gender'. (I've omitted things that might be upsetting).

I found it quite hard to follow, some of it is technical legal points.

'this appellant’s earliest conceivable date of release on parole and licence from the extended sentence will be in October 2033, when the appellant will be 64 years of age. The reality is that it is far more likely that he will be about 70'

'He was dressed as, and appeared to the complainer to be, a woman. The complainer accepted an offer of a lift home.'

'The appellant said initially that he would take her home in the morning. Later, he would sometimes say that he planned to keep her for a week and at others that he would never allow her to leave.'

Just as a note as we've been talking about how paraphilias tend to cluster:

'Other pornographic material involving adult women in tights, or carrying out sexual acts with their feet, was found. The appellant had visited many webpages whose titles indicated indecent child content.'

'At the sentencing diet, the judge read out what he describes as “lengthy sentencing remarks”. In the course of these he set out the circumstances at the point of abduction as a female”. He considered this to be a “significantly aggravating feature”, since otherwise the complainer would not have accepted a lift in his car.'

'The judge had thought that the appellant being dressed as a woman, when offering the complainer a lift, was important. His choice of dress had been
because of his personal life and not with a view to entrapping the complainer'

'There are thirdly, erroneous, or at least speculative, aspects to the sentencing
remarks, which have been founded upon in the appeal. First, the judge regarded, as a significantly aggravating factor, the appellant’s female apparel as indicative of a pre-conceived intention to abduct a girl. The court cannot agree. By the time of the incident, the appellant was already dressing as a woman as a matter of routine, rather than for any more sinister a reason.'

'When dealing with the content of the RAR, the judge hardly touches upon the
significant personal circumstances of the appellant, notably his psychological difficulties with gender and fetishes in his youth and his attempt to depress these in later life. As a generality, there is no need for a judge to delve deeply into an offender’s personal antecedents at the point of sentencing, but if he has elected to provide lengthy sentencing remarks, he would, as a matter of balance, be advised to do so.'

ArabellaScott · Today 15:50

I really cannot stress enough that the judgement is very hard reading. Please avoid if you're not feeling robust.

You've got a stronger stomach than me, literally. What I read in the link DirtyDutchess posted made me feel physically sick.

I'm not I'm a total fucking wimp. But I want to know what's happening with this grotesque man, how the legal system treated it, and more importantly how the case may be used or misused to affect processes in Scotland.

Am I being thick or is this coming down to two slightly different perspectives?

The appeal judge seems to be pointing out that the perpetrator did not intentionally and as part of the offence go to dress as a woman with the purpose of increasing the likelihood of entrapping an offender.

I don't think anyone's suggested that or would argue with that: the perpetrator was a known transwoman in the area with a long transition history.

I took the original judge's meaning to be more that when a male presents as a woman - whether this is full time or part of a transition or not - there is increased trust. This is certainly an image/belief sold heavily as part of the TQ+ political movement, that male TQ+ people are women if they identify as such, should be regarded as such and different to males, that it is in fact wrong to view them as being male, and that they do not use their transition as a means of gaining trusted access to women and children in order to offend.

In that sense, yes, it is a part and it is an aggravating factor. It is an advantage to offending that a non transitioned or non transitioner presenting male would not share.

Not to mention that it yet again demonstrates that there isn't a 'rapist gender' as Sturgeon tried to argue to avoid facing up to this, and it is not the case that 'no true transitioned male' ever does this, and someone who does is not trans but 'at it'. This is a genuine transitioned male, a long term transitioner, who is also an appalling child abuser and sex offender and it is mostly likely only through luck and the victim's nerve and initiative that he is not also a murderer.

Which means that yes, some male transitioners are dangerous to women and children. And yes, that there is a problem in the trusted access this involves to women and children. We can't have it both ways.

Particularly considering his victim had probably been heavily instructed by school by the lobby mentioned above about how safe and very vulnerable transitioners are, and how important it to trust their presented image and be kind to them. In a way that would not be tacitly expected of a little girl with any other man.

This judge seems to be worryingly naïve. Does he think that cross dressing is always an entirely neutral act? And, as we cannot read Miller’s mind and nor can a girl, what really made a difference to the events that day were:

1. Miller’s appearance was misleading
2. the victim was misled.

The appeal judge seems to be pointing out that the perpetrator did not intentionally and as part of the offence go to dress as a woman with the purpose of increasing the likelihood of entrapping an offender.

That's what I'm gathering from it. As I said, it's a bit hard to read, not least because it repeatedly refers to 'the judge' without making clear if it means the first or second one!

He was dressed as, and appeared to the complainer to be, a woman.

So the victim saw him as a woman and therefore assumed he was safer.

The 2nd judge's comments are a bit odd in the context that this man is obviously troubled, had a history of 'psychological difficulties with gender and fetishes in his youth', but he seems to be arguing that this somehow mitigates the crime. That's coming worryingly close to saying that transwomen are to be given more lenient sentences because their gender issues have compelled them to offend.

I suppose the comparator is whether other male child sex offenders of this severity have received leniency due to a history of psychological difficulties and fetishes in their youth - and goodness knows most of them do - or whether this case is being argued as having been viewed more favourably specifically because those issues were gender related.

In which case yes, it needs to be got right out and unpacked, is gender distress specifically an accepted mitigating factor to someone assaulting and/or possibly murdering a child in the course of committing a sex offense upon them?

If the answer is yes, then there will need to be corresponding tightening up of safeguarding practice based on the same factor, surely? Because 'gender' has been identified as a separate, meaningful factor within sex offending, that should be treated differently to those without that characteristic.

It's also infuriating. Despite his long history of offending (some of which he was fined for) & his long history of psychiatric input (some of which was inpatient from his early teens) & his long & public history of fetishistic behaviour, designed to make others, especially women, feel unsafe, he is described as not having a history of offending. What ???

Sorry, the exact wording is: 'he was not a persistent offender'. YES, HE IS ...

Yes. I think the judge is suggesting that his previous history was not violent so is suggesting that he's not been persistently violent? But surely the offences are on a continuum - they are all motivated by paraphilia which seems to have escalated. All of them depend on non-consensual participation.

Brilliant!

If only this could be done every single time.

Not that the news media would publicise it if they could possibly help it, though. My heart aches for women and girls growing up nowadays.

Exactly.

'is gender distress specifically an accepted mitigating factor'
'If the answer is yes, then there will need to be corresponding tightening up of safeguarding practice based on the same factor'

If the judge is suggesting that 'gender' issues compel someone to offend we should be talking about this loudly. Because that will have an impact on society.