Wayne Rogers

3 years ago
Posted in:Charged, Drugs offences, Misc. non-violent offences, Not proven/acquitted, Rape / Sexual Assault, Sexual Offences
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Author: melodie
Tags: Acquitted, Aged 40-49, Cross dresser, England, Hertfordshire, Police appeal, Police obfuscate sex of suspect, Transvestite, Wig

*Silhouette image via Wikimedia Commons*

Wayne Rogers (aka Jade), a male transvestite, was charged with assault by penetration, sexual assault and possession of a class A drug in May 2020.

Rogers, 44, was initially bailed to appear at Stevenage Magistrates’ Court on 22 July, 2020. He then later appeared at St Albans Crown Court on 2 September for a plea and trial preparation hearing. The trial was set for the week commencing 11 January, 2021.

Following the complainant making the allegations to Hertfordshire Constabulary in December 2019, the police issued a renewed appeal in Jan 2020 for witnesses and dashcam footage at the time/location of the attack without mentioning the key identifying feature that the suspect was a male person dressed in women’s clothes. The appeal does not even mention the suspect’s sex or a physical description.

Herts police said ‘We do not want to be in a situation where members of the gay or trans communities in particular are being targeted by hurtful comments or actions as a result of this information being released.”

Detective Inspector Justine Jenkins then issued further instructions to journalists to “ensure you are regularly monitoring or removing any offensive comments posted on social media.”

Later on in their investigations the police’s own words to describe the defendant in June 2020 were that Wayne Rogers was “a man posing as a woman”.

When briefing media to seek their help in encouraging any other possible victims to come forward, Hertfordshire Police justified witholding the description warning that “it is absolutely vital that any coverage of the case in the media is handled supportively and sensitively, both in terms of the male victim and of the LGBT+ community. But the very fact that the police could not ascertain whether the suspect was a trans-identified male or “a man posing as a woman” reveals the problem – if they can’t tell, how would women, confronted with a similar male person entering their changing room at a local pool, for example, somehow be able to magically make the distinction?

In another case in 2018, after publishing a press release entitled “Woman sentenced for historical sexual offences against a child” (archived here), Hertfordshire Constabulary received hundreds of replies from other Twitter users asking them to name the offender, Gary/Carrie Cooper as a male sex offender, rather than ascribe a violent male’s crimes to a woman. Herts Police subsequently deleted the tweet (archived here) linking to the press release.

Police appeal https://www.herts.police.uk/news-and-appeals/renewed-appeal-for-witnesses-following-sexual-assault-in-bishops-stortford-1248a archive

*Update June 2022*

It was revealed in the Bishop’s Stortford Independent in June 2022 that three prosecutions had been initiated against Rogers at St Albans Crown Court. All three separate juries returned not guilty verdicts but the outcome of the drugs charge was not reported. The details are:

Trial 1: Sexual assault and assault by penetration. After going out dressed as a woman on Friday 20 December 2019, Rogers had a sexual encounter with a man in Harlow before encountering the complainant – a man with a female partner, who was intoxicated after a Christmas party – in Bishop’s Stortford. The complainant told Herts police that during the sexual encounter he had pulled at Rogers’ wig (Rogers is bald) and moved it before saying: “This feels wrong” – i.e. he likely realised that the person performing a sex act on him was male, not female. Not guilty verdict returned on 20 May 2022.
Trial 2: Causing a man, who believed Rogers was a woman, to engage in sexual activity without consent. The complainant – a 45-year-old man who said he was heterosexual – claimed he believed he was meeting up every couple of weeks in a field or a car park with a woman called Jade for “a bit of friends with benefits”. The court was apparently shown Rogers’ social media profile which states he is a cross-dresser. Not guilty verdict returned on 7 June 2022
Trial 3: Coercive control in an intimate or family relationship. The complainant was a third man who had lived with Rogers. The offending was alleged to have taken place between January and July 2016. The third jury acquitted him of the charge on 17 June 2022.

Hertfordshire Constabulary’s male police officers have an appalling record of abuse of women and girls. Just in 2022, James Ford was sentenced to 18+ years in prison for raping a girl under the age of 13, PC Ben Pitelen was sentenced to 25 months in prison for making indecent images of children and corruption, PC Jamie Negrello was banned from policing after pleading guilty to the coercive and controlling behaviour of a former partner, and an unnamed officer admitted calling his newborn baby “an attention-seeking whore” and the family court concluded a “wealth of evidence” pointed to him injuring the child and abusing her mother.

*Update December 2022*

Rogers, 46, appeared at Hatfield Remand Court on 5 November 2022, charged with five sexual offences following an incident in Bishop’s Stortford town centre in the early hours of 11 September 2022. The five charges are assault by penetration, sexual assault on a male, causing a male to engage in non-penetrative sexual activity and two counts of causing a male (13 or over) to engage in penetrative sexual activity. Rogers was remanded into custody to appear at St Albans Crown Court in December 2022.

Media reports state that Rogers was ‘dressed up as a woman’ and an officer from the Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Major Crime Unit asked anyone who may have been approached in similar circumstances to make contact with their team by calling the incident room on 01707 355666, quoting Operation Firlot.

Rogers pled not guilty at St Albans Crown Court on 5 December 2022 and was remanded into custody prior to a five day trial starting on 24 April 2023.