Martin Tarling/Abbi Taylor

Martin Tarling/Abbi Taylor, a 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 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 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.

Image credit: PA via Daily Mail