Keith Brown has been urged to immediately publish the Scottish Government’s “urgent lessons learned review” into how a double rapist was kept in a women’s prison.
The Scottish Government has come under scrutiny after Isla Bryson, who was convicted of two rapes carried out while she identified as a man, was sent to an all-female prison, albeit in isolation, ahead of her sentencing.
Mr Brown, the SNP’s justice secretary initially defended the risk assessment procedures of the Scottish Prison Service but First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that no rapists should be held in female prisons.
The justice secretary was forced into a U-turn, with him announcing that no trans prisoners already in custody, newly convicted or on remand with any history of violence against women will be placed in a female jail.
Also announced was an “urgent lessons learned review” into the incident. Mr Brown is set to receive the report today, but it is believed he will write to a Holyrood committee in relation to the findings next week.
It is not known if the full report will be made public.
But the Scottish Conservatives have demanded that the full report is published with immediate effect.
The party’s community safety spokesperson, Russell Findlay, made the call “in the interests of full transparency”.
Mr Findlay said: “This urgent review must be published immediately and in full by SNP ministers as soon as it is completed.
“The public has a right to know why and how a double rapist was ever allowed to set foot in a women’s prison.”
He added: “Nicola Sturgeon and Keith Brown can’t sit on this report and hope the controversy goes away.
“The SNP can't delay this report for days or weeks until their political spin machine works out how to fix this mess.
“In the interests of full transparency – and lessons being learned – the justice secretary must publish this vital report immediately.”
The demand comes after Rishi Sunak waded into the debate over what constitutes a woman by stating “biological sex matters”.
Asked about the matter on Talk TV, the Prime Minister said it showed “some of the challenges”, adding that "we must and should have enormous compassion and tolerance and understanding for those who are questioning their gender and identity".
He added: "But we have to recognise the challenges that that poses, particularly for women's safety.
"For me, whether it's sex, whether it's women's spaces, whether it's prisons, biological sex really matters."
Asked what his definition of a woman was, Mr Sunak said it was an "adult human female”.
It comes after Nicola Sturgeon admitted on Thursday that it was “almost certainly the case that Bryson was not truly transgender.
Speaking at First Minister’s Questions, Ms Sturgeon added that it was “really important” to “look seriously” at the issues thrown up by the Bryson case.
She said: “But that in doing so, we bear in mind two things.
“Firstly, as I’ve said, that we do not further stigmatise trans people generally – I think that is important – but secondly that we don’t cause undue concern amongst the public.
“If there are issues to be addressed we address them, but we do that in a way that’s not just calm, but doesn’t misrepresent the situation, because that is in nobody’s interest.”
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