Martin Tarling/Abbi Taylor

Martin Tarling/Abbi Taylor, a violent male who identifies as a transgender woman, was charged with nine offences at South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court in December 2023. According to media reports, these include:

Four counts of dumping bags of toxic materials, namely nappies containing human waste, at nurseries on South Tyneside, contrary to the Environmental Protection Act
A charge of outraging public decency, ‘by behaving in an indecent manner, namely by being inside a bin containing the waste of children, including with soiled nappies and disclosed garments and interacting with the soiled nappies in sight of the public’
Criminal damage by smearing excrement on milk bottles ‘intended for consumption by small children’ and on other parts of a nursery building, including the fire escape
Intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance between October 2022 and November 2023 at South Tyneside, without reasonable excuse, by continuously dumping adult human waste and other materials on the street and at nursery premises and interfering with the contents of clinical waste bins containing faecal matter from children and babies
Theft of a roll of clinical waste bags from a local nursery
Breaching a criminal behaviour order imposed by Nottinghamshire Magistrates’ Court in April this year, by being within 10 metres of a nursery without reasonable excuse, and/or ‘by removing items from a waste receptacle in direct contravention of said order’

Denis Rice, for South Tyneside Council, called the case ‘complicated’ and summarised it as ‘dumping soiled adult nappies, interfering with nappies at a nursery, smearing milk bottles with excreta and the theft of nappy bags and associated offences’.

Tarling was granted conditional bail and the case was sent to Newcastle Crown Court for a next appearance on January 16, 2024. No pleas were entered at the hearing.

*Update January 2024*

Tarling appeared at Newcastle Crown Court on 16 January 2024 and pleaded not guilty to three counts of depositing controlled waste at three different children’s nurseries, i.e. knowingly illegally disposed of controlled waste in a manner likely to cause pollution to the environment and/or harm to human health by disposing of bags of nappies containing human waste between October and November 2023. Tarling further denied the charges of theft of clinical waste bags from one of the nurseries in December 2022 and damaging property (the charges related to smearing faeces on milk bottles and a fire escape) at another nursery in October 2023.

*Sky News tweets deleted and reposted after >1000 complaints*

Tarling also pleaded not guilty to acting in breach of a criminal behaviour order by being at or within ten metres of a children’s nursery and removing items from a waste container between April and November 2023 and also denied causing a public nuisance at or near a children’s nursery. An eighth charge of outraging public decency “by being inside a bin containing soiled nappies and disclosed garments and interacting with soiled nappies within sight of the public” was apparently not put to the defendant.

Some media evaded naming Tarling as a woman or man in headlines by using ‘Defendant’ but outlets such as Sky and the Northern Chronicle (“South Shields woman…“) chose to name Tarling as a ‘woman’, use female pronouns and report that “she has formally and officially changed her identity.” After at least a thousand Twitter/X users complained, Sky News changed the article copy (see archive) to now read “transgender woman” and deleted a tweet before reposting the link (see right).

Tarling is due to stand trial in March 2025 and was released on conditional bail.

*Update April 2025*

Tarling/Taylor, aged 46 and from South Shields, was convicted at Newcastle Crown Court in April 2025 of three counts of dumping bags of toxic materials – i.e. nappies containing human waste – at nurseries in the local area. Tarling/Taylor also admitted stealing clinical waste bags from one of the businesses and breaching a criminal behaviour order (previously imposed in April 2023 by Nottinghamshire Magistrates’ Court) by being within 10 metres of a nursery without a reasonable excuse. The CBDO was issued after Tarling/Taylor was previously convicted of causing harassment, alarm or distress at a local care provider – i.e. likely similarly disgusting offending involving faeces/nappies.

The judge said he had seen photographs of the excrement on the milk bottles and the nappies “strewn around the car parks at times when parents must have been going to drop off their babies or toddlers. It must have been absolutely horrifying to leave their children in that environment and go off to work”. He also considered the impact on nursery staff, saying: “It made them anxious, uncomfortable, unhappy going to work for months on end, not knowing what they were going to find.”

It emerged in court that Tarling/Taylor’s repulsive and intimidating behaviour had been going on for six years, (i.e. since 2019). The manager at a South Shields nursery reported seeing someone “rooting around inside” one of the clinical waste bins in January 2023 and in May 2023 a female member of staff at a nursery in Jarrow saw Taylor exiting from one of the waste bins. The court heard that “She saw a pair of legs climb out from inside the bin and run off”. The staff became, unsurprisingly, so ‘anxious and uncomfortable’ that they had to go to the bin area in pairs. Tarling/Taylor was described as having an adult baby/diaper lover (AB/DL) fetish according to his own Facebook profile (see other AB/DL fetishists on this site here) and that he is ‘regressing’ to childhood and searching for a ‘gentler more carefree time’ but denied it was motivated by a sexual interest in children. See this article on autopaedophilia which describes men who are sexually aroused by the thought or image of being a child.

Most newspapers avoided calling Tarling/Turner anything other than ‘the defendant’ and pointed out that although the court referred to him as a ‘woman’, he appeared on court lists as ‘Martin Tarling’. The Daily Mirror, however went full troll, with a headline and tweet reading Woman ‘smeared faeces at nursery and climbed in clinical waste bin for comfort’. Strangely, although Tarling/Taylor also identifies as a baby, no headlines referred to him as an infant.

The hearing was adjourned until sentencing on Thursday 17 April – the defendant’s counsel, Nick Lane, cited the usual claims that ‘identifying as a woman would increase Taylor’s vulnerability if she [sic] was jailed’. Even more worryingly Mr Lane said Taylor is “in a relationship with a woman who she [sic] helps to live independently.” – i.e. he is responsible for the care of a vulnerable woman.

Tarling/Taylor was granted conditional bail until sentencing.

*Update May 2025*

Tarling/Taylor’s sentencing has apparently been delayed until August while awaiting more information from the CPS. Agreeing that Tarling/Taylor was a significant risk to the public, the judge at Newcastle Crown Court remanded him into custody, however the defence will reportedly apply for conditional bail at a hearing scheduled for Friday 30 May.

*Update August 2025*

Tarling/Taylor was sentenced to two years in prison at Newcastle Crown Court, but almost unbelievably (considering the very real fear, harm and expense Tarling/Taylor’s offending has repeatedly caused) the jail sentence was suspended for two years after the judge heard he had a ‘difficult time’ in a men’s prison during three months on remand. This is known as the trans ‘Get Out Of Jail Free’ card and there are a great number of similar examples here – many for serious violent/and/or sexual offending that would normally result in prison time. Tarling/Taylor must complete 100 hours unpaid work, rehabilitation requirements and a GPS tagging requirement which will enable to authorities to track where he is and has been.

*Custody photo via Northumbria Police/Shields Gazette*

The Daily Mail reported that after the previous sentencing hearing was adjourned, the court heard Taylor had been remanded in custody for almost three months after pleading guilty to three further breaches of a criminal behaviour order (i.e. he had reoffended while on bail and was in breach of the ban prohibiting him being around nurseries or “inside any bin” due to the earlier, similar conviction in Nottinghamshire). Staff at a nursery in Cleadon, a village in South Tyneside, had noticed nappies ‘much larger than the ones they used’ were being dumped on the premises ‘on a fortnightly basis’. In September 2024, a resident at a block of flats in South Shields caught Taylor naked from the waist down inside a bin bag in a wheelie bin in the communal waste store – Northumbria Police provided video of this confrontation, available via several news reports. Many local media reports persisted in using female pronouns for Taylor/Tarling but calling him a ‘nappy dumper’ or ‘adult diaper lover’ rather than quite daring to call him a woman. The articles also included ridiculous phrases such as “The footage was played in court and shows Taylor frantically pulling her [sic] pants up inside the bin bag and bin”, juxtaposed with a custody photo of an obvious (degenerate) man with a beard.

Media coverage of the sentencing also reported on the considerable fear and expense many of Tarling/Taylor’s victims had been subjected to, including nursery staff who had been traumatised by the “really sinister” episodes and one nursery that had to spend £3,000 improving security, while others had spent hundreds of pounds installing CCTV and lighting. The court heard that Taylor’s offending had left staff fearing to enter and leave work and parents wanting to remove their children from the nurseries.

As is wearyingly common, the BBC had to be dragged kicking and screaming into including the relevant context that an offender is a man who identifies as transgender. In the initial version of their coverage of Tarling/Taylor’s sentencing, the BBC news report didn’t include the name ‘Martin Tarling’ at all – however following complaints, the amended version hastily includes a justification of why they have included his name, i.e. “Abbi Taylor, who was also referred to in court as Martin Tarling due to previous convictions in that name…”.

See here for further examples of trans-identified males whose nappy fetishism has been involved in their offending

See here for other examples trans-identified males who have smeared faeces/blood/urine as part of their offending

Image credit: PA via Daily Mail

Media reports

Chronicle Live https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north–east–news/south–shields–soiled–nappy–dumper–32229634 archive

BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62gn7j9q76o – archived versions, before vs after being forced to include the defendant’s name (Martin Tarling)