John Leslie Graham/Chleo Sunter

3 days ago
Posted in:Assault/Wounding, Child Sexual Abuse, Possession of extreme pornography, Rape / Sexual Assault, Sexual Offences, SOPO/SHPO breaches, Violent Offences, Voyeurism
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Author: melodie
Tags: Aged 20-29, Aged 30-39, Alcohol, Asperger's/autism, Cautioned, Child victim, Cleveland Police, Convicted 2012, Convicted 2014, Convicted 2017, Convicted 2018, Convicted 2021, Convicted 2023, Convicted 2025, County Durham, England, Facebook, Female victim, Grindr, HMP Durham, Law enforcement victim, Learning difficulties, Male victim, Mental health, Multiple victims, No jail, Police /courts using defendant pronouns, Public toilet, Public transport, Relationship break-up, Repeat offender, Reported as woman, Self-harm, Social media, Spitting, Stole a woman's name/identity, Substance misuse, Supermarket, Suspended sentence, Teesside, Trans woman, Yorkshire

John Leslie Graham/Chleo Sunter (aka John Taylor), was convicted at Teesside Crown Court in March 2025 of two counts of voyeurism and six breaches of a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO). Graham/Sunter was sentenced to 26 months in prison. The defendant’s ten-year SHPO was renewed and he was ordered to sign on the sex offenders’ register for ten years.

Graham/Sunter, aged 37 and latterly of Thornaby, North Yorkshire (previously Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham), secretly recorded and photographed men in toilets in the Middlesbrough Aldi store as well as Captain Cook Square shopping centre and at Darlington station. In all, Graham/Sunter was found to have taken 790 pictures and 15 videos of men inside toilet cubicles and standing at urinals. At an earlier court hearing Graham/Sunter also admitted deleting 695 chats, 712 photos, and four videos from the gay dating app, Grindr, and had reset his phone to factory settings/used incognito mode to browse the internet. These were prohibited by the SHPO imposed for previous sex offences. He has been described in court as being estranged from his family and having a history of alcohol abuse, self-harm, Asperger’s/autism and a low IQ.

Graham/Sunter is a serial sex offender who has repeatedly offended and breached imposed SHPOs/notification orders for over a decade. It is unknown whether he started identifying as a “woman” before or after the latest conviction (i.e. another example of so-called ‘Prison-onset gender dysphoria‘) but had already spent eight months in prison on remand before the trial so this may have been a ploy to be transferred to a female prison. Nevertheless, media dutifully reported the offences as having been committed by a woman and Graham/Sunter was referred to as ‘she’ in court. Several outlets did, however, point out that the government has refused to force police to record biological sex instead of criminals’ self-declared gender.

Previous convictions/SHPO breaches include:

2012: Sexual assault of a teenage girl, for which – unbelievably – he received a caution rather than a prison sentence

2014: Possession of extreme pornographic images, indefinite SHPO imposed

2017: Jailed at Teesside Crown Court for six months in HMP Durham for three separate breaches of the order, namely being caught with a mobile phone that was unregistered with the police, failing to register a change of address and using the false name of ‘John Taylor’ to create a Facebook profile (Taylor was his ex-partner’s surname)

2018: 12 month community order with 20 rehabilitation days for again breaching the SOPO by logging on to Match.com under an alias not shared with the police monitoring him. Also ordered to pay £100 compensation to the police officer he assaulted (spat on) when arrested

2021: Jailed for 12 months after deleting internet history and dating apps while devices were being checked by a police officer. Fifth breach of the SHPO and notification order

2023: Sixth breach of the SHPO and notification order when the 695 chats, 712 photos and four videos from Grindr were discovered.

Photo credit: Cleveland Police/Evening Gazette via Metro