An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has said that violent biological males should not be put into women’s prisons, as controversy grows around the placement of transgender sex offenders into Limerick women’s jail.
Addressing a question from Gript’s Ben Scallan, Mr Varadkar said the law may need to be changed to ensure women prisoners are protected.
"Is Barbie Kardashian a woman?": Taoiseach Leo Varadkar says that biological males should not be put in women's prisons. pic.twitter.com/wS4vmOPHnT
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Scallan asked an Taoiseach if he believed that Kardashian – who is a sex offender and was recently sentenced for threatening to torture, rape and kill a woman – was a woman as the transgender prisoner had claimed.
Mr Varadkar said that he had only heard about the case for the first time at the weekend.
Pressed by Scallan, an Taoiseach said that he needed to look into the case and discuss it with Minister for Justice, Simon Harris.
“In principle, do you believe that violent biological males should be put into in women’s prisons?” Scallan asked.
“No, I don’t, frankly,” Varadkar replied.
“I know that a similar situation arose in Scotland, and it was necessary to change the law to make sure that women were protected,” he said.
Kardashian has been sentenced to five and a half years in jail after being found guilty of seven counts of threatening to kill, rape, torture or cause serious harm to his mother.
The sentencing judge, Tom O’Donnell, said that the psychiatric reports on Kardashian made for “chilling and disturbing” reading.
At a meeting with a social care manager, also attended by guardian ad litem, Kardashian said:
“If I got into (my mother’s) house I would run towards her and put the knife into her body and into her genitalia; the thing is, I would want to prolong my mum’s suffering for as long as possible”.
“I would stab her, but not in her heart or neck, I’d want to put her through lots of torture, fear and humiliation”.
“I would bring a screwdriver to insert inside her genitalia because I am a woman and women rape using objects; it would definitely be a long protracted incident, I would want her to bleed out after death after a number of hours, by putting objects into her vagina, pouring boiling water into that area.”
Kardashian, who has been diagnosed with several personality disorders, also said:
“I know that my mum is smaller than me, she is physically weak and she is frail, when I was living with her since I was nine or ten I was stronger than her then and I know she would be overpowered by me.”
“I would only walk away after she was dead. I would check her pulse to make sure she was dead, I wouldn’t want her to run out and shout ‘help’, ‘help’, ‘help’. I wouldn’t want to be caught by the Gardai, I think I would be caught because I do not feel that I could outsmart them.”
His threats towards his mother are not the only deeply disconcerting aspects of Kardashian’s behaviour.
All five psychiatrists who assessed Kardashian and the background files to the case said that there was a “real danger”, he would carry out the fantasies to torture, rape and kill.
Justice O’Donnell noted that Kardashian’s threats had become ‘more sinister, more alarming and more vile’ as his term in a teens’ facility came to an end.
15 previous convictions including sexual assault
The judge also said that Kardashian has 15 previous convictions including one for sexual assault carried out when he was just 13 years of age and that these factors were of “enormous concern”.
“All [the assaults] were involving violence and underpin the fact the accused has a tendency towards violence, which is always a concern,” the judge said.
While in his late teens, Kardashian, who was born a male and named Gabriel Alejandro Gentile, obtained a gender recognition certificate issued by the Department of Social Protection.
Kardashian’s legal representatives told the court that the prisoner was “very anxious she be detained in a prison facility for females, as she identifies as a female.”