Mark/Melissa Addis
Mark/Melissa Addis, a violent male who identifies as a trans woman, was convicted of putting a person in fear of violence by harassment at Snaresbrook Crown Court in 2014.
Addis, 44, was sentenced in June 2014 to an 18-month supervision order, 40 days on an integrated domestic abuse programme, and given an indefinite restraining order to stay away from the victim, former partner and mother of Addis’ child, Julie Lane.
The Mail on Sunday reports that Addis was arrested in November 2013 and the harassment campaign deemed so serious (as it included threats to kill made against Ms Lane) that Addis spent six months on remand in a male prison before the case came to trial in 2014.
At some point during incarceration or on release from prison, Addis began identifying as transgender while living in Stonewall Housing Association’s LGBTQ Project for homeless lesbian, bisexual, gay or transgender people. Despite knowing of Addis’ history of domestic violence towards a female partner, the Stonewall project made a referral to the East London Women’s Project (ELWP) run by St Mungo’s, the homelessness charity.
St Mungo’s state that women’s homelessness is closely linked to domestic abuse and other violence against women, and their own research indicates 54% of their women residents that slept rough have experienced violence or abuse from a partner or family member. However, St Mungo’s has also apparently been trained by Stonewall, an organisation that has actively campaigned to remove single sex exemptions from the Equality Act 2010 which allow the provision of female-only services.
On its website the St Mungo’s ELWP shelter states that it is “shared supported accommodation for single female survivors of domestic violence or other forms of gender-based violence, who have multiple support needs”. So the one type of person the ELWP eligibility assessment should exclude in order to safeguard the vulnerable female clients would surely be a convicted perpetrator of domestic abuse? Apparently not.
The Mail on Sunday also reveals that a staff member complained about Addis’ behaviour (shouting, crying, threatening violence against other clients in front of frightened, vulnerable women) and about the policy of allowing transgender women into ELWP, but their complaints were ‘shut down’ by senior management. The policy of allowing transgender women into the female-only hostel apparently started in 2016 and was driven by a man named Simon Hughes, St Mungo’s regional director for East London.
Several trans-identified males including rapists Karen Jones and Karen White have perpetrated serious offences once released from prison and living in probation hostels – see this tag.
See also the catastrophic safeguarding failure in the prison service risk assessment process which allowed rapist Karen White/Stephen Wood to self-identify as transgender and sexually assault vulnerable women in prison. Another trans-identified male sex offender, Katie Dolatowski, was also recently housed with vulnerable women in a probation hostel in Scotland.
Further reading from Fairplay For Women:
Probation hostels: GRA reform raises safety concerns for women residents and local communities
Photo credit: Daily Mail
Media reports
Mail On Sunday https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6894599/When-man-called-Mark-locked-threatening-kill-mother-child.html archive
Women Are Human https://www.womenarehuman.com/womens-refuge-allows-male-transgender-who-threatened-to-kill-his-female-partner/ archive
The Sun https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8813718/domestic-abuser-kill-lover-womans-refuge/ archive