Transgender Sally Ann Dixon: Sussex police apologise after Fareham MP and Home Secretary Suella Braverman raps them for 'playing identity politics' over child abuser

The home secretary said Sussex Police should ‘focus on catching criminals not policing pronouns’ after the force said it would not tolerate ‘hateful comments’ about the perpetrator’s gender identity.

Sally Ann Dixon, of Swanmore Road, Leigh Park, was jailed for 20 years at Lewes Crown Court on September 8 after being convicted of 30 indecent assaults, Sussex Police said.

The force said the crimes, against five girls and two boys, took place between 1989 to 1996, when Dixon was known as John Stephen Dixon.

The 58-year-old later transitioned to female in 2004, it added.

Some people on Twitter objected to the force referring to Dixon in the headline of its press release as a ‘woman convicted of historic offences against children in Sussex’.

Responding to the remarks, Sussex Police tweeted that it does not ‘tolerate any hateful comments towards their gender identity regardless of crimes committed’.

‘This is irrelevant to the crime that has been committed and investigated,’ it added.

In response, Ms Braverman tweeted: ‘@Sussex_police have done well to put a dangerous criminal behind bars.

‘But they’ve got it wrong by playing identity politics and denying biology. Focus on catching criminals not policing pronouns.’

Now the force has apologised. ‘We reported factually on the findings of the court which heard that, at the time of the offences, Dixon was living as a man, John Stephen Dixon,’ a statement said.

‘The relevant offences were recorded as being committed by a male.

‘An earlier reply to a comment on Twitter was inconsistent with our usual style of engagement; we apologise for this and have removed the comment.

‘We recognise the rights of the public to express themselves freely within the boundaries of the law.’

Ms Braverman thanked the force for ‘their swift apology and retraction’.

She added: ‘The best police officers focus on solving crimes and supporting victims. Not political correctness.’

Karen Ingala Smith, who founded Femicide Census, an organisation which provides information on women who have been killed by men in the UK, had also initially responded to the force’s comments.

She tweeted: ‘The sex of the perpetrator certainly is not irrelevant in crimes of sexual violence against children, for example rates of perpetration differ hugely by sex.

‘Moreover, if crimes committed by males are recorded as crimes by females then policy based on crime data will be hopeless.’

Frances Crook, former chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, now co-convenor of the Commission on Political Power, said 15,000 men are in prison convicted of sex crimes, compared to around 100 women.

She said allocating even a small number of male crimes to women would ‘skew the figures’.

She tweeted: ‘Can you tell us if this crime was counted as being committed by a man or a woman?

‘He was male when he committed the offences.

‘Men commit an overwhelming majority of sex/violent crimes and just a few male crimes allocated to women would skew the figures.’

Responding to one Twitter user who said she was exercising her gender critical views, Sussex Police said she could familiarise herself with what is regarded as hate on its website.