The row erupted after some on Twitter objected to the force referring to Sally Ann Dixon, who was jailed for 20 years for 30 indecent assaults she carried out as a man, as a “woman convicted of historic offenses against children”. Dixon, from Havant, Hampshire, committed the crimes against five girls and two boys between 1989 and 1996. At the time she was known as John Stephen Dixon. The 58-year-old became a woman in 2004. Sussex Police responded to the comments by tweeting that it does not “tolerate hateful comments” about a person’s gender identity “regardless of crimes committed”. The force said: “This is unrelated to the crime that has been committed and investigated.” Home Secretary Suella Braverman responded on Twitter: “@Sussex_police have done well to put a dangerous criminal behind bars. “But they’ve made a mistake by playing identity politics and denying biology. Focus on catching criminals, not policing pronouns.” Shortly after the Home Secretary intervened, Sussex Police released a statement which read: “An earlier response to a comment on Twitter was not in keeping with our usual style of engagement; we apologize for this and have removed the comment. “We recognize the public’s right to express themselves freely within the limits of the law.” “The gender of the perpetrator is not irrelevant” The force also confirmed that Dixon’s crimes were recorded as being committed by a man after Twitter users raised concerns about the matter. Karen Ingala Smith, who founded the Femicide Census, an organization which provides information on women who have been murdered by men in the UK, tweeted in response to the force’s initial comment: “The gender of the perpetrator is certainly not irrelevant to crimes sexual violence. against children, for example, crime rates vary greatly by gender. “Furthermore, if crimes committed by men are recorded as crimes by women, then policy based on crime data will be hopeless.” Risk of “skew figure” Frances Crook, former chief executive of the Howard League for Criminal Reform, now co-chair of the Political Power Committee, said there were 15,000 men in prison convicted of sex offences, compared with around 100 women. He said that allocating even some male crimes to women would “distort the numbers”. Ms Crook tweeted before Sussex Police apologised: “Hi @sussex_police can you tell us if this crime is believed to have been committed by a man or a woman? “He was a man when he committed the offences. “Men commit the vast majority of sexual/violent crimes and just a few male crimes distributed to women would inflate the numbers.” Read more from Sky News: ‘Mystery for more than 47 years’ Responding to a Twitter user who said she was exercising her gender-biased views, Sussex Police said they could familiarize themselves with what is considered hate on their website, adding: “If you have gender-biased views that you want to express this can be done on other platforms or on your own page, which is not aimed at an individual.” Dixon, who will be subject to a sexual harm prevention order indefinitely, was sentenced on September 8.
