Karen White

"Karen White" alias Stephen Terence Wood alias David Thompson, born male in July 1966, British criminal who used transgender status to obtain transfer to a women's prison where he sexually assaulted four inmates.

In 2017 he was arrested for stabbing and burglary and first placed in a men's prison. Then when he asserted he was transgender, he was moved to a women's prison, despite being a convicted rapist and pedophile. He has never had a legal sex-change, hormone treatment or surgery. Within days of arriving at HMP New Hall in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, he sexually assaulted four female inmates. The assaults took place between September and November 2017. ^[1]

Born as Stephen Terence Wood in July 1966 in Manchester, England, the son of an electrician, he was brought up by his father after his parents separated when he was a small boy. He was convicted in 2001 for two offences of indecent assault and gross indecency with a child of primary school age, and jailed for 18 months.

He committed acts of severe physical violence against a former partner, her daughter and his own son, so severe that a restraining order banned him from contacting his son until he was 18. While in prison for those crimes, he changed his name from Stephen Wood to David Thompson.

And in 2003, not long after coming out of prison, he raped a woman — a crime that would go undetected for more than a decade.

He moved to Mytholmroyd in West Yorkshire, where he lived on disability benefits and got a council flat. According to a neighbour, he used his alleged transgender status to bully and control other residents in the block, threatening to report any who dared to stand up to him for "transphobia".

On one occasion he called 999 to report a hate crime when an elderly resident in the housing complex referred to him as 'he' instead of 'she'.

On another, he stabbed an elderly male resident, claiming the pensioner had sexually assaulted him.

Wood then moved to Huddersfield where he carried on a sexual relationship with a woman, to whom he presented as a man. According to her statement he only adopted a "female" ID occasionally. "He was an occasional cross-dresser...There were no appointments at gender identity clinics or anything like that, which is what you would have expected. He occasionally dressed as a woman, either for nights out at a bar in Huddersfield town centre or if he had meetings with officials in relation to his claims for disability and housing benefits. He didn't take any hormones or medication." She suffering violent attacks by Wood and he made threats to her life. She added "'He was very manipulative and very controlling. He was a liar. He could twist anyone around his finger. I've seen him do it with authority figures. He played the system." ^[2]

After the female inmates complained, Wood was moved to HM Prison Leeds, a category B men's prison, where he is awaiting sentencing on October 11. He has pleaded guilty to stabbing his neighbour and sexual assaults on two inmates at New Hall, as well as a rape committed in 2003 and two counts of raping another woman in 2016.

The rapes were only discovered when West Yorkshire Police began delving into Wood's past after the assaults he committed while at New Hall.

When the facts were leaked to the media in September 2018 there was a public outcry but no response at all from either the prison service or politicians. ^[3]