UK: Transgender woman jailed for raping teenager as a man

A transgender woman was jailed for eight years after raping a 15-year-old teenager when the woman was still a man in 2004. Previously known as David Ayrton, Davina Ayrton, carried out the rape 11 years ago when she was 23.

"I was a young girl when David Ayrton raped me. At the time I didn't trust the police, and I didn't want to make a statement. I have never forgotten the incident. I will never forget how he forced himself on me," said the victim who remains unidentified due to legal reasons. "I was hysterical, and I lived in fear all the time. I thought I was a real tough cookie but clearly I wasn't."

Ayrton, 34, allegedly used her weight to lie on top of the vulnerable teenager and carry out the abuse that has left the victim "scarred", a Portsmouth Crown Court heard. Despite reporting the crime to the police, the victim chose to remain silent out of trauma. It was not until Ayrton confessed the rape to a worker at the Heywood Sumner House care home in Fordingbridge, Hants, in 2014 that the incident gained substance.

Announcing the sentence, Judge Ian Pearson said, reported The Telegraph: "This is a historical matter, the victim was aged 15 and she was a vulnerable child who absconded from school and from home. On this night in question you had all consumed a significant quantity of alcohol.

"You had sex with her without her consent in a garage. In the passage of time it's quite clear the traumatic effect of that night has not lessened with regards to the victim. She's recovered to some extent but, in her victim impact statement, it's quite clear the effects were scarring and will never leave her."

Judge Pearson said she accepts that Ayrton comes from a difficult background and was the subject of sexual abuse herself but "the cycle continues with your [Ayrton] now being an abuser." Ayrton has not undergone gender reassignment surgery and will remain on the sex offender register, said Judge Pearson.