Joshua/Leah Harvey
Joshua/Leah Harvey, a male who identifies as a trans woman, was convicted in May 2018 of five counts of attempting to incite a girl to engage in sexual activity, and jailed for three years and eight months. A sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) was imposed, banning contact with children.
Harvey, 25, was released on licence in October 2019 and breached the SHPO within a fortnight by blatantly approaching two boys at a Remembrance Day event in front of a police officer, who thought Harvey seemed “over-familiar”. Despite the boys confirming they had never met Harvey and the restrictions imposed by the SHPO regarding children, plus a member of the public saying that Harvey had been overheard in a shop “bragging about being a paedophile”, the officer seemingly took no action, leaving Harvey free to later harass and intimidate two girls working in a takeaway in the Caerphilly area.
Wales Online reports that the first girl felt unsafe when Harvey threw food at her and said they had “a surprise” for her, before trying to get through the hatch to the area behind the counter. Harvey later returned to the shop to harass another girl, asking if she was old enough to have a sexual relationship, asking to take her out and making her feel vulnerable and intimidated.
Harvey was convicted of two breaches of a sexual harm prevention order and jailed in May 2020 for two years . Harvey will serve the sentence at HMP Parc, a male category B prison and must sign the sex offender register indefinitely. The judge referred to the defendant’s “sheer arrogance” in the “blatant” approach to the boys in front of the police, adding: “This was a persistent breach of the order.”
Wales Online referred to Harvey as a woman and ‘she’ throughout the article and the police declined to provide a custody photo. Yet another of the increasing examples of the media and police appearing to conspire to ascribe male sexual offending to women – see this tag for many further examples.
See also “These Are Not Our Crimes” a compilation of 71 male offenders recently convicted by UK courts of violent and/or sexually violent crimes, all of whom identify as trans women. All these crimes have been erroneously reported as having been committed by women. If we cannot name these perpetrators as male, we cannot address the problem; male violence against women and girls.
*Update July 2022*
Harvey was convicted at Newport Magistrates’ Court in 2022 of (again) breaching the Sexual Harm Prevention Order (SHPO) after being found in possession of an unregistered electronic device in High Street, Newbridge. The court jailed Harvey, 27, of Crumlin, Caerphilly for 24 weeks and ordered the defendant to pay £239 in costs and a surcharge after being released from custody.
*Update February 2023*
Harvey, 28, was convicted in October 2022 of (yet again) breaching the SHPO by having unsupervised contact with a child. At a hearing at Cardiff Crown Court in February 2023, Harvey was sentenced to three years in prison, to be served at HMP Parc (a men’s prison). A previous hearing in December 2022 had determined that Harvey’s “gender issues” would not permit a transfer to HMP Eastwood Park (a women’s prison) because the Ministry of Justice reforms in England and Wales ensure transgender women with male genitalia, or those who have been convicted of a sexual offence, will no longer be held in a women’s prison.
Harvey had been discharged from Grange University Hospital in Cwmbran in the early hours of 2 October 2022 and then repeatedly pestered and sexually harassed a 16 year old girl on the hospital premises, waiting outside the toilet for her and showing her sexualised messages, such as “Do you want to f***?” and “I love you, I want to bang you” and the contents of a bag which contained sanitary towels and a journal book which had a picture of a topless woman on the front. A concerned member of the public at the hospital called the police and Harvey was arrested at home in Crumlin – doubtless via the ankle tag fitted following previous offences that Harvey had shown to the victim.
At sentencing, Judge Nicola Saffman said: “This is your fourth breach of the order. Police have attempted significantly to support you in complying with the order whilst you were on licence. There has been an allegation you have sexually assaulted a male prisoner and been verbally abusive to prison officers.” The SHPO remains in place indefinitely.
Media coverage at WalesOnline at least managed to refer to Harvey as a transgender woman in the headline, but used female pronouns throughout. The Independent Press Standards Organisation is running a public consultation on the reporting of sex and gender identity – please submit feedback here by 10 March 2023.
Photo credit: Guardians Of The North paedophile hunters who originally brought Harvey to the attention of the police in 2018.
Media reports
Wales Online https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/transgender-woman-who-breached-sexual-26225595 archive
South Wales Argus https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/20254021.caerphilly-paedophile-jailed-breaching-sexual-harm-order/ archive
South Wales Argus https://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/23057002.paedophile-defied-sex-order-chid-cwmbran-hospital/
Wales Online https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/leah-harvey-caerphilly-sex-offender-18256962 archive
Guardians of the North Facebook https://www.facebook.com/guardiansofthenorth/posts/joshua-harvey-in-his-mid-20s-from-pontypool-this-male-had-been-speaking-to-what-/2055143728142751/
The UK & Ireland Offenders Database https://uk-database.org/2020/05/23/leah-harvey-caerphilly/
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