Alex Horwood/Lynsay Watson

Police constable Lynsay Watson (formerly known as Alex Horwood), a male who identifies as a transgender woman, was found guilty of gross misconduct and dismissed without notice from Leicestershire Police in October 2023. Watson was also added to a barred list which prevents that person being rehired by any other police force.

Watson, 56, sent more than 1,200 abusive and derogatory messages to a member of the public via social media over an 18-month period, calling him a Nazi, fascist and bigot, and doctoring photographs of him. Though arrested in 2022 related to this course of conduct, Watson was not charged, and remained a serving officer until finally dismissed a year later.

The victim was Harry Miller, the founder of campaign group Fair Cop, himself a former police officer. Watson also targeted a number of feminists and campaigners critical of transgender ideology. After being warned by superiors and told to tweet anonymously, Watson continued to abuse Mr Miller and set up multiple accounts in an attempt to evade identification, even posing as a fake version of the victim’s Fair Cop group on Twitter/X.

The judge agreed with the force’s solicitor that Watson’s actions were ‘intentional, deliberate, targeted and planned’ and that ‘an officer who is abusive towards individuals when their ideologies clash is undoubtedly going to cause significant harm to public confidence.’

Watson’s chequered history in various jobs in the army (Royal Signals), health service and police – and accompanying unsuccessful legal actions (including failing to win a sexual discrimination case after being refused a job with the Military Police) is available below via various archived news articles from the late nineties/early 2000s. Watson was previously dismissed from the British Transport Police and reportedly left an NHS job after self-identifying as female and concealing having had gender reassignment surgery.

Cases of trans-identified male offenders in the UK police force are available under this tag. These include the sex offender Nicholas/Stacey Pool and Kyle/Zoe Watts who was convicted of weapons and explosives charges in 2021.

*Update April 2025*

Following a court hearing in February 2025, Mrs Justice Hill dismissed a claim made by Watson that Greater Manchester Police (GMP) had been wrong to to take no further action against the political commentator Stuart Campbell (who runs the popular Wings Over Scotland website) regarding social media posts he had made on trans issues. In a victory for free speech, GMP’s decision made in November 2023 was ruled “both lawful and correct”, i.e. did not cross the threshold to be considered objectively ‘grossly offensive’. The judgment can be read here and a detailed post from Wings Over Scotland on the sorry saga is here.

The ruling came the same day the Supreme Court ruled that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 refer to a biological woman and biological sex.

Image via Harry Miller