• 1 week ago
• Posted in:Child Sexual Abuse, Possession of CSA images, Sexual Offences
• 0
• Author: Trans Crime
• Tags: Aged <20, Asperger's/autism, BBC, Channel Islands, Child victim, Convicted 2025, Female victim, Guernsey, Guernsey Police, Male prison, Media avoids pronouns, Media obscuring trans status, Met victim online, Multiple victims, Offended 2024, Police /courts using defendant pronouns, Reoffended while on licence/bail, Reported as woman, Snapchat, Social isolation, Social media, Trans woman

Jessica Garnham-Burton, a male who identifies as a transgender woman, was convicted in June 2025 at the Royal Court in Guernsey of ten counts of sexual offences against children. These included sending indecent messages and images to two very young girls (aged just seven and eight) on Snapchat, and multiple counts of making and possessing indecent images of children.

Garnham-Burton, aged 18, had tried to meet the children, despite being aware of their ages. Thankfully, one of the child’s parents checked her phone, found the indecent messages and went to the police. A total of 11 category A images and 40 category C images were recovered, plus a category A video that Garnham-Burton had sent to one of the girls. Category A includes images of e.g. children being sexually penetrated.

Garnham-Burton was sentenced to 2 years and 8 months in prison and police confirmed to the BBC that the sentence will be served in the male section of Guernsey’s youth detention facility. The BBC story was updated on 1 July 2025 to include the prison allocation and also make it clear that the defendant is transgender (i.e. an earlier version had obviously not included this fact). Garnham-Burton has been in custody since a breach of bail in September 2024.

Attempts were made by the defence at mitigation including telling the court that the defendant was socially isolated and neurodivergent and “did not easily recognise the girls’ young age when she [sic] saw their photos.” The judge described Garnham-Burton’s offending as “revolting”.

Some media, such as ITV News, persisted with completely obscuring Garnham-Burton’s trans status, referring in the headline to a “teenager” being sentenced and using female pronouns for a male sexual predator throughout. Others mentioned trans status but also used female pronouns.

See also Freddie/Alyssa Trenchard, another trans-identified male from Guernsey (population approx 63,000) who was convicted of the rape of a teenaged girl in 2023. If Guernsey’s trans population is similar to England’s (i.e. 0.1% of males identifying as trans women), there would likely be around 30 trans-identified males living on the island, and the fact that at least two of them are currently imprisoned for sex offences against young girls is concerning. At the end of 2024, it was revealed that almost two thirds (62%) of trans-identified male prisoners in England and Wales are sex offenders, a much higher percentage than the general male prison population where approx 1 in 5 (i.e. 20%) are imprisoned for sex offences.

Image credit: Guernsey Police via Guernsey Press

Media reports

Guernsey Press https://guernseypress.com/news/2025/06/30/teen-messaged-girls-aged-seven-and-eight-on-snapchat  archive

BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp866m7m08eo  archive

ITV News https://www.itv.com/news/channel/2025-06-30/teenager-sentenced-for-series-of-child-sex-offences  archive

Bailiwick Express https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/news-ge/trans-teen-jailed-for-sex-offences/  archive