Two trans-identified males were jailed on the same day for committing sexual crimes in the United Kingdom. Convicted pedophile “Jessica Smith,” of Devon, England, tried to communicate online with a 12-year-old ‘girl’ but didn’t realize the child was really an undercover police officer, while “Paula” Paul Stanton masturbated in front of nurses at a hospital in Cardiff, Wales.
46-year-old Smith pleaded guilty on Monday to two attempts to incite a child to sexual activity and was jailed for four years an four months. Smith also admitted four breaches of the Sexual Harm Prevention Order for creating internet accounts while banned and having a laptop without having informed police. Presiding Judge Stephen Climie said there was a “significant element of mental ill-health” and warned that Smith poses a risk of committing further sex crimes in the future.
Smith, a repeat offender, was previously convicted in April 2021 during a sting in Sidbury. At the time, Smith sent a stream of sexual messages and images to what he believed to be two 14-year-old schoolgirls which were in fact decoys set up by a group called Justice for the Tears.
Smith claimed the photos were of his genitals, and even asked one of the girls to bring along a 12-year-old friend to a meetup. The pedophile hunters discovered Smith hiding in the bushes near the rendezvous location.
At Exeter Crown Court, Smith admitted to three counts of attempting to incite a child to sexual activity and one of arranging to commit a child sex offense. He was jailed for two years and ten months and put on the sex offenders register for life.
A claim of “gender dysphoria” was leveraged on Smith’s behalf. During sentencing, Judge Peter Johnson said that a “psychiatric report is of the opinion that your long-standing gender dysphoria and issues of sexual identity contributed to your anxiety and depression.”
However, he added: “The facts of the case are straightforward. You thought you were talking to someone aged 14 on social media and within ten minutes you turned the conversation to sexual matters.”
It was noted that in 2018, Smith also made contact fake profiles which had been set up online and purported to be 14-year-old girls.
Reporting on the 2021 conviction, local outlet Sidmouth Herald repeatedly referred to Smith simply as a “woman.”
On the same day that Smith was convicted, a trans-identified male who uses the name “Paula” was jailed for masturbating in front of nurses at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.
Paul Stanton, 62, a Falklands War veteran, had been taken to the hospital on May 17 for a mental health assessment over concerns over a threat to self-harm. The court heard that he began to masturbate while making eye contact with a nurse. During proceedings, Stanton, who has has 12 previous convictions for 19 offenses, was referred to with feminine pronouns.
Lewis Ball, prosecuting, said: “The defendant put her hands down her leggings to the groin area. Staff could see that she had her penis in her hand and that her hand was moving up and down. This was happening on and off. He made eye contact with one nurse while he was doing it. Hospital security was called but when they arrived, it had stopped.”
Stanton was jailed in August 2024 for 12 months for two counts of committing an act outraging public decency. On that occasion, Stanton had been spotted touching himself sexually in his flat window as women walked past. At the time, he was wearing a black bra and women’s underwear under his dressing gown.
Newport Crown Court was told that one of the women later found a note on her car, left by Stanton, which read: “Please keep looking at the flats. Paula wants to show you her underwear. It turns Paula on.”
In a victim statement, one of the women said: “The whole incident left me feeling disturbed and I think about the effect on a young child if they had seen it. It makes me feel sick.”
Stanton admitted behaving in the manner he did for sexual gratification and pleaded guilty to two counts of outraging public decency, for which he was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment. Prior offenses committed by Stanton followed a similar pattern.
Stanton was previously handed a suspended sentence of six months imprisonment after he exposed himself to a woman. The sex offender performed a sex act in his car while following a woman, who described him as wearing women’s underwear. She said he had been “staring and grinning” at her.
Frightened, the woman hid in a shop. However, Stanton continued to follow her, exited his car, and pulled up his shirt while continuing to touch himself. He had also been previously convicted of outraging public decency in relation to a sexual offense involving children in a playground.
135 British MPs are fighting guidance that would deny ‘Paula’ the right to enter women’s and girls’ changing rooms. pic.twitter.com/03XRZfMz2F
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 16, 2026
News reports on both men’s convictions caused a wave of controversy on social media as many news outlets referred to the sexual predators by feminine pronouns in their coverage.
The Barry and District News in particular drew the ire of women’s rights advocates on X after repeating the term “her penis” in their article on Stanton’s conviction.
“This @barrydistrict story is an embarrassment to journalism,” journalist Janet Murray wrote in a post that attracted over 120,000 views. “Readers are told a ‘woman’ masturbated in front of nurses.”
This @barrydistrict story is an embarrassment to journalism.
— Janet Murray (@jan_murray) June 15, 2026
Readers are told a "woman" masturbated in front of nurses. They are then told the prosecutor said:
"The defendant put her hands down her leggings to the groin area. Staff could see that she had her penis in her hand… pic.twitter.com/VQ35iVMTXR
“Seriously folks, stop getting any news from any source that reports ‘her penis in her hand…’ – even as a direct quote from a prosecutor who should also know better,” Dr. Zoe Harcombe added on the outlet’s coverage of Stanton. “If you don’t know what a woman is, you shouldn’t be trusted on anything.”