ianstone
03-30-2010, 06:54 AM
Leeds;
sex swap strangler to marry murderer
HMP= Her majesty's prison & YOI= Young offenders instatute
Published Date: 30 March 2010
By Vicki Robinson
A NOTORIOUS double killer is getting married behind bars – after falling for a murderess.
Strangler Douglas Wakefield, 61, from Leeds, was switched to a women's prison after he underwent a sex change operation in the 1990s.
http://editorial.jpress.co.uk/web/Upload/LEED//TH1_303201056RPY_NEW_HALL_DP01.jpg
Two years ago, he met lesbian lover Thelma Purchase when she began her own 30-year sentence at New Hall Prison in Wakefield.
Now, the pair have been granted permission to hold a civil partnership ceremony in the jail chapel.
The revelation has angered West Yorkshire MP Philip Davies.
Mr Davies, MP for Shipley, said: "It is incredible that this can be allowed. The criminal justice system is becoming a joke."
Wakefield was jailed 36 years ago for strangling his uncle, beating him with a hammer and stabbing him 48 times with a garden fork in Gipton, Leeds.
The father-of-two is infamous as one of the most dangerous men in jail after killing an inmate at Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight, known as one of Britain's toughest jails.
He has also taken officers hostage twice and clocked up more than 1,000 hours in solitary confinement.
Wakefield - who now uses the first name Tai - has been married twice, once behind bars.
He underwent the £11,000 NHS-funded gender reassignment operation in the 1990s after he started wearing earrings and decorated his cell with lace curtains.
His bride-to-be Purchase, 45, was jailed for a minimum of 30 years after suffocating a disabled man to get her hands on £70,000 he had left her in his will.
The pair will have to pay for their wedding costs – £345 – from money they have saved.
Their marriage follows another "wedding" held this month at New Hall – of killers Amanda Fitzpatrick and Debbie Ware.
Fitzpatrick, 25, was jailed for life for the murder of her brother-in-law with a pair of scissors and lesbian Ware, 31, stabbed a shopkeeper in a robbery.
A Prison Service spokeswoman told the YEP: "We cannot comment on individual prisoners.
"Prisoners are entitled to apply to the governor to register a civil partnership in prison under the Civil Partnership Act 2004, so long as certain criteria defined under the Act are met."
They say it could only happen in the UK; I wonder
sex swap strangler to marry murderer
HMP= Her majesty's prison & YOI= Young offenders instatute
Published Date: 30 March 2010
By Vicki Robinson
A NOTORIOUS double killer is getting married behind bars – after falling for a murderess.
Strangler Douglas Wakefield, 61, from Leeds, was switched to a women's prison after he underwent a sex change operation in the 1990s.
http://editorial.jpress.co.uk/web/Upload/LEED//TH1_303201056RPY_NEW_HALL_DP01.jpg
Two years ago, he met lesbian lover Thelma Purchase when she began her own 30-year sentence at New Hall Prison in Wakefield.
Now, the pair have been granted permission to hold a civil partnership ceremony in the jail chapel.
The revelation has angered West Yorkshire MP Philip Davies.
Mr Davies, MP for Shipley, said: "It is incredible that this can be allowed. The criminal justice system is becoming a joke."
Wakefield was jailed 36 years ago for strangling his uncle, beating him with a hammer and stabbing him 48 times with a garden fork in Gipton, Leeds.
The father-of-two is infamous as one of the most dangerous men in jail after killing an inmate at Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight, known as one of Britain's toughest jails.
He has also taken officers hostage twice and clocked up more than 1,000 hours in solitary confinement.
Wakefield - who now uses the first name Tai - has been married twice, once behind bars.
He underwent the £11,000 NHS-funded gender reassignment operation in the 1990s after he started wearing earrings and decorated his cell with lace curtains.
His bride-to-be Purchase, 45, was jailed for a minimum of 30 years after suffocating a disabled man to get her hands on £70,000 he had left her in his will.
The pair will have to pay for their wedding costs – £345 – from money they have saved.
Their marriage follows another "wedding" held this month at New Hall – of killers Amanda Fitzpatrick and Debbie Ware.
Fitzpatrick, 25, was jailed for life for the murder of her brother-in-law with a pair of scissors and lesbian Ware, 31, stabbed a shopkeeper in a robbery.
A Prison Service spokeswoman told the YEP: "We cannot comment on individual prisoners.
"Prisoners are entitled to apply to the governor to register a civil partnership in prison under the Civil Partnership Act 2004, so long as certain criteria defined under the Act are met."
They say it could only happen in the UK; I wonder