Daniel/Sophie Eastwood

7 years ago
Posted in:Assault/Wounding, Driving Offences, Misc. non-violent offences, Murder/ Manslaughter, Possession of weapons, Stalking/harrassment/threats, Violent Offences
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Author: Trans Crime
Tags: 10+ years imprisonment, 15+ years imprisonment, AB/DL, Aged <20, Aged 30-39, Autopaedophilia, Convicted 2004, Convicted 2008, Daniel Eastwood, Dumfries, Dumfries Young Offenders' Institution, Extreme violence, Female prison, Female victim, G4S, HMP Cornton Vale, HMP Dumfries, HMP Edinburgh, HMP Greenock, HMP Polmont, HMP Shotts, Law enforcement victim, Life sentence, Male victim, Multiple victims, No SRS, Offended 2004, Offended 2016, Offended in female space, Offended while in custody, Pre-transition, Prison Officers Association, Prison transition, Prisoner victim, Scotland, Sophie Eastwood, Strangulation, Trans woman, Young Offenders Institute

Daniel / Sophie Eastwood, a violent male who identifies as a trans woman, was convicted of murder in 2004. Eastwood, then 19, strangled a fellow inmate Paul Algae, 22, in Dumfries Young Offenders’ Institution and was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum tariff of 15 years. At the time, Eastwood had been serving a 12 month sentence for dangerous driving.

In 2008 Eastwood, then 23, was given an extra 10 months for a violent attack in which he punched a male prison guard several times, reportedly while on a rare break from a specialist segregation unit, indicating the prisoners’ unsuitability to be housed in the general population.

In 2016, a female prison officer employed by G4S was forced to resign after Eastwood used information he had gathered on her life and her family to intimidate her while she was escorting him on a hospital visit.

In 2018 Eastwood was reported to now identify as a trans woman and has demanded prison staff use the name Sophie. Eastwood is not understood to have requested gender reassignment surgery or a move to Scotland’s only female prison, HMP Cornton Vale.

Phil Fairley of the Prison Officers Association said: “While a small number, more and more prisoners and undergoing gender changes.

“It makes our officers’ jobs more difficult and there have been issues raised by guards who have to do things like searches.

“It has the potential to be misused by people as a way of getting moved jails.”

*Update May 2018*

Eastwood was reportedly moved to HMP Polmont after what the media euphemistically call being “openly intimate in front of others” while outside and “letting things all hang out” i.e. having public sex with fellow trans-identified male murderer Alan Baker/Alex Stewart in HMP Greenock.

*Update April 2022*

The Daily Record reports that Eastwood has “told the prison governor at Polmont jail that she [sic] wants to identify as a baby, wear nappies and have meals blended like baby food” and also demanded that prison officers hold her [sic] hand when she [sic] is escorted from her cell.”

A prison source told the paper “This prisoner has already served the entire punishment term of the tariff but she [sic] has not been advanced through the prison estate to a place where she [sic] can prepare for release. There is apparently no current intention to put Eastwood in any open prison regime, and the source added “This is nothing to do with gender issues. She [sic] just refuses to play by the rules or show any inclination or readiness to live in normal society.” Eastwood alleges it is because of their gender transition and (somewhat predictably) accuses the prison of transphobia. In an interview in 2021, Eastwood revealed the deeply terrifying reasoning for taking the life of Paul Algae – basically as a mere means to getting what they want, saying “I was naive, immature, and thought that killing my cell mate would get me sectioned and I’d spend the rest of my life in hospital being looked after. I’m sorry and regret it every day.” Eastwood has been in a women’s prison since transitioning in 2018 – at HMP Edinburgh, Polmont and a short spell at Cornton Vale.

Feminist Sheila Jeffries discusses Eastwood in this video of her analysis of how abusive men are endeavouring to establish adult baby fetishes as a marginalised sexual identity, rather than a paraphilia.

Other trans-identified males with adult baby fetishes are collected under this tag.

*Update February 2023*

Eastwood featured in a Times article on 15 February 2023 in which Scottish prison authorities have been criticised for endangering vulnerable women after it emerged that four of the five transgender inmates held in the female prison estate are murderers. The fifth trans prisoner is believed to be child sex offender named Harryetta Thompson who has now been segregated from female prisoners after they discovered Thompson’s offending history.

Kate Coleman, of Keep Prisons Single Sex, said: “These are violent male offenders, all four of whom have caused significant problems in the female estate . . . including sexual exhibitionism (Stewart and Eastwood), harassment and stalking (Eastwood), sexual threats and inappropriate sexual relationships (Green) and violent assault (Young).”

Image via Perthshire Picture Agency via Daily Record