Shaun Pudwell / Michelle Lewin

Shaun Pudwell/Michelle Lewin (aka Michelle Saunders), a violent male who identifies as a trans woman, was convicted at Leicester Crown Court in October 2007 of causing or inciting child prostitution or pornography, three counts of attempting to meet a child following sexual grooming, three counts of causing a child to watch a sex act and making indecent images of children.

Pudwell/Lewin, then aged 40, was jailed indefinitely for public protection (IPP) after conviction for the sex offences against three schoolgirls; this sentence reflects the level of risk he was judged to pose to women and girls.

Pudwell/Lewin, aged 51, was reportedly transferred from the Category B men’s prison HMP Elmley to the women’s section of HMP Peterborough in September 2018, to await gender reassignment surgery. HMP Peterborough houses both adult women and female young offenders.

Both the Mail and The Sun report female prisoners at the jail as being ‘terrified’ at the move. A source told The Sun: ‘A lot of the women are genuinely terrified of her. Lewin’s a serious sex offender and she’s physically much stronger.

Contemporary news reports indicate Pudwell initially posed as a 12 year old girl to start grooming multiple girls on social media and police forces in Leicestershire, Newcastle and Gwent began investigations and passed information to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. In April 2006 police and CEOP Operations agents arrested Pudwell and seized his computers which were found to contain 2,500 indecent images of children and evidence of correspondence to 150 email addresses which appeared to belong to young girls. 

While imprisoned in HMP Elmley, Pudwell transitioned and married another sex offender Mark Lewin, 34, in 2014  – he was jailed in 2011 after filming up two women’s skirts with his mobile phone and then jailed again in 2015 after trying to take a photograph up a nurse’s skirt at Dorking Hospital and 23 counts of possessing 1,400 indecent images of children. His appalling previous sexual offending against women and girls dates back to 2008, including twice being caught peering over the cubicles at a leisure centre in Oxted to watch young girls changing.

Other trans-identified males who have been imprisoned indefinitely for public protection are collected under this tag. They include Gary Marie/Marie Dean who broke into women and girls’ bedrooms to masturbate into and steal their underwear and violent rapists Mark Lazarus and Peter Steel.

A list of violent male sex offenders who have transitioned in prison can be viewed via this tag and a list of trans-identified males who have committed violent and/or sex offences against women and girls is available in this post.

*Update May 2019*

Pudwell/Lewin complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) over articles published in the Sun, headlined:Fury as trans paedo put in women’s jail” and on Mail Online with the headline:Outrage as transgender child groomer who is ‘legally female’ is put in women’s jail leaving inmates terrified.Pudwell/Lewin tried to argue that these articles breached Clause 2 (Privacy) of the IPSO Editors’ Code of Practice by linking Lewin’s current and former names. The newspapers argued there was a clear public interest in publishing Lewin’s former name and informing readers of past serious sexual offending in the context of the public debate about transfer of male sex offenders into female prisons – and consequently the complaints were not upheld. An additional complaint versus The Sun claiming breach of Clause 3 (Harassment) related to an interview with Lewin’s husband at his home was also not upheld after audio recordings exonerated the journalist.

The no breach IPSO rulings are available here:

Media reports

Press Gazette https://pressgazette.co.uk/sun-and-mail-online-acted-in-public-interest-by-reporting-convicted-sex-offenders-gender-change-ipso-rules/  archive

The Sun https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7281372/transsexual-paedophile-moved-womens-prison/ archive 

Mirror archive 11.10.2007 Cyber creep facing prison; He posed as a girl  archive

UK & Ireland Paedophile Database https://uk-database.org/2012/04/08/shaun-pudwell-gillingham/  archive

UK & Ireland Paedophile Database https://uk-database.org/2012/07/06/mark-lewin-caterham/  archive

Daily Mail https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6179341/Outrage-transgender-child-groomer-legally-female-womens-jail.html

Kent Online https://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway/news/child-sex-offender-changes-name–a76169/ http://archive.is/OVbBP

The Chronicle https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/jail-pervert-who-prowled-net-1505580 archive 

Mumsnet https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3368746-Dangerous-sex-offender-transferred-to-womens-prison-Peterborough