Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Sex-change killer to wed lesbian murderess in jail

A double killer is getting married behind bars after being switched to a women's jail following a sex swap - and falling for a lesbian murderess. Strangler Douglas Wakefield, 61, has won permission to get married in the prison chapel.

Other inmates will be guests at the civil partnership ceremony as Wakefield - who underwent a taxpayer-funded "gender reassignment" and is now called "Tai" - recites vows with mother-of-three Thelma Purchase, 45, a fellow lifer.

Wakefield was sentenced 36 years ago for strangling his uncle, beating him with a hammer and stabbing him 48 times with a garden fork in Gipton, Leeds. The father of two became notorious as one of the most dangerous men in jail after killing an inmate at Parkhurst and twice taking prison officers hostage. He clocked up more than 1,000 hours in solitary.



He has been married twice, once behind bars. His £11,000 sex operation in the '90s came after he started wearing earrings and decorated his cell with lace curtains and flowers. Wakefield was then transferred to New Hall, where Purchase began her life sentence two years ago.

She was jailed for a minimum of 30 years after getting a job caring for a disabled man - who she suffocated to get her hands on £70,000 he left her in his will. The pair must pay their £345 wedding costs out of money they have saved.

A prison source said: "To allow a sex-swap double life-sentence prisoner and a murderess to marry is grotesque. But the management don't think there is anything wrong with it."

4 comments:

arbroath said...

I understand why a tabloid paper feels the need to belittle and insult a convicted murderer for going through a gender reassignment, but those quotation marks harm every transgendered person, not just this criminal. I'm irked. A small thing, but I'm sensitive when it comes to these kind of issues, I don't like bullying.

arbroath said...

^ Insolitus: Right on, and very well put. Thanks.

arbroath said...

I completely agree, clearly the issue here is not that Zir is a trans-gendered individual but a sociopath 

arbroath said...

So now that she's a woman, I guess that means she's a lesbian because she's attracted to a woman?