Trans woman jailed for sexual assault

A TRANS woman who was found guilty of sexual assault after deceiving a man has been locked up. Ciara Watkin, from Thornaby, has been locked up for 21 months by a judge at Durham Crown Court.

- By ESTHER HALLIGAN

Watkin was found guilty of three counts of sexual assault after standing trial. The jury at Teesside Crown Court took just 75 minutes to reach the verdicts which were found on the basis that Watkin failed to disclose the now 21-year-old’s biological sex.

Watkin met the victim on Snapchat. The now-convicted sex offender used a female cartoon profile picture and after chatting, the two arranged to meet up. Watkin had a stuffed bra and repeatedly claimed to be “on my period’. The sex offender moved the victim's hands away and asked for the lights to be turned off in the bathroom.

Watkin performed sex acts on the man, who later said he would not have consented had he known he was with a biological man. The two met again at the man’s family home. Judge Peter Makepeace said that the victim’s mother has suspicions that Watkin was male, but she didn’t tell her son “out of respect for his privacy”

Watkin left the next morning, and blocked the victim on social media in a move that the judge later said showed Watkin had “no emotional” ties with him and that actions had been “transactional”