Is the Scottish Prison Service breaking the law?
A judge has ruled that housing male prisoners in the female estate is unlawful. But for now, the policy remains in place.
It has been fourteen months since the UK Supreme Court ruled that ‘sex’ in the Equality Act refers to biological sex, not ‘gender identity’. And yet in all that time many companies and public bodies have been evading their responsibility to obey the law. The most egregious example came this week, when Linda Pollock, Chief Executive of the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), put out an internal memo that once again betrays a shocking disregard for legal responsibilities.
The context of the memo was a Court of Session ruling issued last week by Lady Ross. It followed a judicial review brought by For Women Scotland over the Scottish Prison Service’s 2024 guidance on the management of trans-identified inmates. The SPS has been permitting men who identify as women to be accommodated in the female estate if they satisfy a risk assessment. It has been its policy, in other words, to prioritise gender identity ideology over safeguarding. The risks of this approach are not hypothetical. In April, a male murderer called Alan Baker was charged for sexually assaulting a woman at HMP Greenock.
Lady Ross held that the SPS guidance was unlawful, finding that Scottish prison rules require separate accommodation for men and women. She cited the Supreme Court ruling on the Equality Act and pointed out that, as a matter of law, biological sex must be the determining factor. It is mind-boggling that we require judges to state the obvious, but that is the reality of the UK in 2026.
Pollock’s response was remarkable. While admitting that the SPS has been acting unlawfully, she nonetheless stated that the current admission policy ‘remains in place’ but that she ‘will carefully consider Lady Ross’s findings before responding’. Here is the memo in full.
This is an astonishing admission, and could very well constitute contempt of court. A public body does not get to set its own timetable for when it obeys the law. Pollock has a duty to update the unlawful aspects of SPS policy without delay. That this needs to be said at all demonstrates how those who are in hock to genderism consider their ideology to be above the law…
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