Laura Mart
Laura Ashleigh Mart, a violent male who identifies as a transgender woman, was convicted in September 2025 at Preston Crown Court, of indecent exposure and breach of a sexual harm prevention order.
Mart had exposed his genitals to a ten year old girl in a local playground in July 2025 and was caught after another child’s dad found him hiding in a bush in the park, took his picture and appealed for help to identify him via social media. Mart was subsequently identified and arrested by the police.
Mart, aged 35 and from Great Harwood, near Blackburn in Lancashire, is a serial sex offender having a history of similar offences, with three previous indecent exposure convictions in 2014, 2015 and 2016, as well as breaches of a sexual harm prevention order (SHPO) in 2017 and 2018 and an indecency charge in 2017. At the time of the offence, Mart was subject to a lifelong SHPO and prohibited from standing within 10 metres of a public place where children are expected to be.
The defendant’s barrister, Rebecca Holmes, attempted to mitigate Mart’s offending saying that he ‘did not go to the park with the intention of committing the offence, but she [sic] “couldn’t control the urge she [sic] had there”. Ms Holmes went on to tell the court: “She is transgender and identifies as a woman. “There is no excuse for this offence, and it is a complex thing to deal with, and they have to wake up feeling they are in the wrong body” – an extremist position even the discredited child-sex change charity, Mermaids, has abandoned.
The judge sentenced Mart to 28 months’ imprisonment for breach of a SHPO with six months to run concurrently for exposure, and reimposed the sex offender notification requirement for life. Thankfully, Mart cannot serve his sentence in a women’s prison under government rules that prevent trans-identified male violent/sex offenders being housed in the women’s estate.
Local media initially reported the arrest of a man for the offence in July 2025 (as the police apparently referred to Mart as male during their investigation likely due to his long history of similar sex offences), but by sentencing in October, coverage was calling Mart a ‘woman’ and included the craven and now depressingly familiar oxymoron of ‘her penis‘. It would be almost funny, but for the context – the article reports the testimony of a child who was ‘playing on the monkey bars in the park [and] saw Mart holding her penis and wiggling it at her, and she immediately told her friends and father.’ The article also refers to Mart with female pronouns throughout, so we must ask who this partisanship in the media benefits – potential child victims of repeat sexual predators who need to understand which sex of people they are most at risk from – or the predators themselves.
Image credit: Lancashire Constabulary via Lancaster Telegraph
Media reports
Lancaster Telegraph https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/25438325.great-harwoods-laura-mart-jailed-exposure-lancaster/ archive
Lancaster Telegraph https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/25332471.great-harwood-man-charged-alleged-indecent-exposure/ archive
Daily Mirror https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/dad-finds-dangerous-pervert-hiding-35854804 archive
Lancashire Evening Post https://www.lep.co.uk/news/man-charged-after-allegedly-exposing-himself-near-childrens-play-area-in-lancasters-williamson-park-5236033 archive
Lancs Live https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/dad-tracked-down-dangerous-pervert-32406386 archive