A transgender woman sentenced to 14 months in prison for stalking the surgeon who carried out her gender reassignment procedure is being held at a women’s jail in Surrey, prompting scrutiny from a Conservative MP who says she is urgently looking into the placement.
Vivienne Taylor, 28, pleaded guilty to causing serious alarm or distress and stalking at Isleworth Crown Court last March, following a four-year campaign of harassment against consultant urological surgeon Dr Tina Rashid. The offending began shortly after Taylor underwent reassignment surgery in Putney in 2021, initially sending the surgeon a cake as a gesture of thanks before developing what was described in court as a “fixation” on the medical professional.
Over the following years, Taylor accumulated dozens of photographs of Dr Rashid on her phone, turned up at her workplace, sent unsolicited emails suggesting they should “catch up,” attempted to connect with her on LinkedIn and on one occasion threatened to “batter” her. When Taylor was admitted to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital with surgical complications, she demanded to be treated exclusively by Dr Rashid and threatened self-harm if the request was refused.
Sentencing Taylor, Judge Giles Curtis-Raleigh described the impact on Dr Rashid as touching “every aspect” of her life. The surgeon told the court she had experienced “anxiety most days” and feared for her personal safety throughout the period of harassment. The judge imposed what he described as an “exceptional” restraining order with no time limit.
Taylor is now being held at HMP Downview in Surrey, a women’s prison. She is housed in E Wing, a specialist unit described by the Ministry of Justice as the only facility of its kind, designed for transgender women assessed as presenting too high a risk for the general women’s estate but also considered at risk in the male estate. Prisoners in the unit are kept separate from the wider prison population, though they may participate in supervised activities with other inmates in certain circumstances.
Conservative MP Rebecca Paul said she was “urgently looking into” Taylor’s placement at the facility. A Ministry of Justice spokesperson confirmed the existence of the separate unit, stating it was “isolated from the main female population.”
