Chemical castration of sex offenders in regional pilot had ‘some success'
A pilot scheme of chemical castration of sex offenders in south-west England 'has had successful outcomes', a prison officers' union has said.
The Government has accepted a proposal in the independent sentencing review to explore further use of medication to suppress the sex drive of offenders, currently being piloted in the region.
A national rollout will begin in two regions covering 20 prisons in response to the review which called for the services to be piloted on a small scale.
The Prison Officers' Association (POA) represents some healthcare staff who work in jails and a union boss said their members have 'not reported any difficulties when administering this medication' as part of the south-west trial.
POA chairman Mark Fairhurst said: 'The POA have been fully briefed on the extension of this trial which has had some successful outcomes.
'We are not in a position to disclose which sites this medication will be extended to.'
Under the review led by former justice secretary David Gauke, it recommended for ministers to build more evidence around the use of chemical suppression for sex offenders.
It also highlighted the treatment would not be relevant for some sex offenders such as rapists driven by power and control, rather than sexual preoccupation.
Chemical suppressants have been used in Germany and Denmark on a voluntary basis, and in Poland as mandatory for some offenders.
The review said the medications are not widely used in prisons across England and Wales but are currently delivered in prisons through a national programme, jointly commissioned by the NHS and prison service, that provides 'psychologically informed' services for offenders with complex needs, and likely diagnosed with personality disorder.
It was first piloted in the UK at HMP Whatton, in Nottingham, in 2007, and was rolled out to six more prisons in 2016.
In 2022, the pilot scheme extended the treatment, called clinical management of sexual arousal, to five prisons in the south west of England.
Chemical suppressants include hormonal drugs, anti-androgens, which can be prescribed to reduce libido, and non-hormonal drugs such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which can be used to reduce compulsive sexual thoughts.
The review said: 'Only medical specialists can prescribe these medications and they should only be used in conjunction with other psycho-social treatment and support, for example, to aid individuals to engage fully with these interventions.
'Before any decision is made to establish further services for chemical suppression across England and Wales, services must be piloted on a small scale with evaluations produced.
'Various considerations, such as side effects and potential ramifications for victims, will need to be examined.'
The review also called for the need to research international use of the method to look at 'ethical and practical' implications, adding: 'As gaining valid, informed consent to a course of treatment is a key tenet of medical law and ethics in England and Wales.'
On Thursday, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood confirmed the Government is also exploring whether some criminals could be forced to take the medical treatment.
She told the Commons that existing studies show a 60% reduction in offending, and it would be for a subset of sex offenders where the combination of chemical suppressants and psychological interventions can 'have a big and positive impact'.
'For many years there's a pilot that has been trundling along and nobody has shown much interest in it, including any of my predecessors,' she said.
'I'm not squeamish about taking these further measures.
'It's why we're going to have a national rollout of this programme … so that we can build the evidence base and make sure that we are using every tool at our disposal that can cut reoffending.'
The Government has not yet confirmed which regions or prisons will be part of the pilot scheme.
But reacting to the announcement, Prison Reform Trust chief executive Pia Sinha said forcing medical treatment raises 'clear ethical considerations' which could put medical practitioners in an 'invidious' position.
She said: 'Medical interventions to address the behaviour of people convicted of sexual offences only applies to particular types of offending – it must not be seen as a panacea.
'Any treatment that targets its use needs to be strictly risk-assessed by medical experts rather than ministers.
'Forcing people to have medical treatment raises clear ethical considerations and would also place medical practitioners in an invidious position.'
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The Guardian
42 minutes ago
- The Guardian
I thought it was being gay that made my life so difficult. Then, at 50, I got an eye-opening diagnosis …
My earliest memory is of feeling different. I'm gay, and grew up in the 1980s, in a tough, working-class town in the north of England at the height of the Aids crisis. My gayness was obvious in the way I walked and talked. I was bullied at school, called a 'poof', 'pansy' and 'fairy'; other children did impressions of me with their wrists limp. I experienced physical violence, too. I was shoved, kicked, my head was slammed against the wall. I was punched in the face more than once. But it wasn't just my sexuality that set me apart. I was 'weird'. I had a rigid attachment to routine and was terribly shy, sometimes freezing in social situations. I needed to be on my own for long periods; not easy when you're in a family of five and share a bedroom with your brother. I was obsessive, channelling this at first into the Star Wars films, then the Narnia novels and, as I got older, Madonna. Lots of kids have short-lived interests but mine were intense: I'd collect facts and statistics about Madonna, memorise the chart positions of her singles, then reel them off to anyone who would listen. If anyone criticised her, I took it as a personal attack and would be distraught. I was easily upset in other ways. I was sensitive to touch and hated being cuddled, I burst into tears at the sound of fireworks. If I heard someone eating with their mouth open, I'd put my hands over my ears and run out of the room screaming. My anxiety was so acute, I'd bite my nails until my fingers bled. I found a few activities soothing. I had a security blanket, which I'd twiddle between my fingers. And I found comfort in repeating words or phrases, over and over again. Sometimes, I'd musicalise snatches of dialogue and skip around the house, singing them. On occasion, I'd lose control in the form of 'meltdowns' – usually before school. I'd collapse on the floor, my body spasming with rage and tears, yanking off my glasses and throwing them across the room. When I was nine, I was sent away on a camp with the Cub Scouts. When I realised I had to share a tent with some of the boys who bullied me, I started being violently sick. I shivered and sweated so badly that my sleeping bag became soaking wet. The Scout leaders removed me from the tent and took me to sleep in their hut. When my parents came to collect me the next day, I felt a relief like I'd never felt before. A lot of my 'weird' behaviour did fit with what, in the 80s, was considered to be 'gay'. Adults would comment that I was 'dramatic', 'oversensitive' or 'overemotional'. I worked hard at school and was neat and fastidious – all seen as effeminate traits – earning me the label 'girly swot'. In the working-class north of the 80s, nobody discussed mental health, let alone neurodivergence. There was no way that, as well as being gay, I could entertain the thought that there might be something different about my brain. So I tried to camouflage my weirdness. I copied other people's behaviour and did everything I could to fit in. In 1994, I got into Cambridge University. Here, it was OK to be studious and gay. But I was now different for another reason: as a working-class kid from a comprehensive school, I was in a minority. The other students, mostly from private schools, did impressions of my northern accent. Sometimes, it was affectionate but often it was cruel. One of my tutors used to make me read out my work and encouraged the other students to laugh at me. I trained myself to avoid saying dangerous words like 'cook', 'baby', 'Coke', or that all-time killer for anyone from Lancashire, 'fair hair'. I was often blunt with people, which was put down to my being from the north. But I was also incredibly anxious. For one entire term at Cambridge – in my second year, when I was sharing a room – I woke up every morning and vomited into the sink. In the late 90s, I started working in the media, an industry I knew would be welcoming to gay men. But work pressures seemed to have an impact on me more than others. When plans changed at the last minute, which happened often in TV, I wasn't just stressed, it felt as if the world was ending. In the open-plan office I was surrounded by TVs and radios blasting and colleagues tapping and talking. The noise felt like an assault; but it only seemed to affect me. I got a job as a correspondent on Channel 4 News and became the subject of vitriol. Twitter users commented I was 'ridiculously camp' or 'double gay, even … he kills my ears'. The late Sunday Times critic AA Gill compared me to another effeminate man, declaring I was 'to arts reporting what Wayne Sleep was to darts'. Although everyone is affected by criticism, with me it caused a hollow ache that lasted for weeks. It hurt so much because I assumed the abuse was homophobic. It took me right back to the school playground. Working on a separate TV documentary series, I was told it had to be re-edited to make me less camp. I objected but received an email response telling me to 'MAN UP'. Of course, this could be upsetting to anyone. But I couldn't control my fury. The bosses told me I was behaving 'hysterically' – and I probably was. But I was also scared by how badly I'd lost control of my emotions. As a teenager, I'd discovered that alcohol could not only calm my anxiety but also allowed me to be a different version of myself; one that wasn't shy but funny and outrageous. On any night out, I'd be the one more drunk than anyone else, doing whatever it took to get a laugh, stripteasing or skinny-dipping, initiating games of spin the bottle. As I moved up the career ladder, the parties I went to became more extravagant: I went to events sponsored by record labels where I was picked up in limos and plied with champagne. I was often at celebrity parties. I got so drunk at one event that Tara Palmer-Tomkinson told me that I looked wasted. I struggled to maintain romantic relationships, with boyfriends often rejecting me for being 'full-on', and fell into a cycle of casual sex. Growing up, the few gay men I'd seen portrayed in the media were hypersexual – so I just thought this was what we did. At the end of many a night out I'd stagger on to a sex club or sauna for anonymous, sometimes reckless sex. Twice, I was robbed by a man I'd taken home. By the time I hit 30 I'd never had a boyfriend. It also dawned on me that I'd never had sex sober. I became lonely – terribly, breathtakingly, soul-shatteringly lonely. I decided to pursue my childhood dream and started writing fiction. But my first novel, the loosely autobiographical The Madonna of Bolton, was rejected by agents and publishers for 10 years. Much of the rejection was homophobic: one editor called my manuscript 'too explicit for comfort'; another said that having a gay character was too 'niche'. I thought the cutting despair I felt was gay shame, that after a childhood of absorbing the message that my sexuality was wrong, this was still what I believed deep down. Perhaps it was also why my drinking had become so self-destructive and I was punishing myself by engaging in dangerous sex. I started seeing a therapist, and quit drinking. I crowdfunded that first book, and it was followed by more successful novels with a traditional publisher. My childhood dream had come true – but I couldn't enjoy it. I still experienced homophobia, with one publisher commenting that she didn't want me to be 'so explicit on the wider LGTB [sic] issues'. And I struggled to deal with the publishing industry's treatment of working-class authors, especially when contracts took 10 months to process or royalty payments were late by up to 18 months. While some authors can be diplomatic in these situations, I was told by my agent that I was rude and lacked tact. I'd become fixated on the injustice, a storm raging in my head for weeks. A few years ago a younger family member began to be investigated for autism. So I started researching it beyond the stereotypes. I learned that autism can express itself differently from person to person. While some people are hypersensitive to sounds and touch, others can be hyposensitive – the opposite. The same is true of emotions. I learned that the autistic spectrum isn't a straight line going from less autistic to more autistic; some people liken it to a pie chart, with different sized slices representing different traits and abilities. I wondered whether autism could explain some of my behaviour. But as far as I knew, autistic people were also supposed to be devoid of empathy, whereas I struggled to control mine: I got so wound up watching Mr Bates vs the Post Office that I couldn't sleep for weeks. Autistic people were supposed to struggle with relationships. But I'd had several close friendships for decades and by this time I'd fallen in love and got married. Then a member of my husband's family was diagnosed with autism, and I couldn't help but wonder whether our relationship worked because he was used to people whose brains were wired differently. In June 2024, I spoke to my GP. I was referred to a team of clinical psychologists specialising in late-in-life diagnosis. It's difficult to untangle behaviour that's symptomatic of neurodivergence from a personality that has been formed over decades of life experience; in my case, hyper-sensitivity and anger as a result of sustained homophobia and class snobbery. There was a waiting list of several months, pages of forms to fill in, and interviews with figures from my childhood that culminated in a five-hour assessment. You are autistic, they said. When I heard the words, my heart was hammering, my breath short and fast. But mainly what I felt was relief. After years of being misunderstood – of misunderstanding myself – I finally had the right framework to build up a better picture of who I truly am. A lot of my behaviour started to make sense: twiddling my security blanket was what I now recognise as 'stimming' or self-stimulatory behaviour. As was my repetition of certain words and phrases, a habit known as 'echolalia'. Then I learned that rejection sensitive dysphoria and emotional dysregulation are common among autistic people. As is anxiety, although autism in itself doesn't produce anxiety, rather it seems to be caused by the challenges of living as a neurodivergent person in a neurotypical world. I was also diagnosed with ADHD, so needed to get my head around a second condition too. I discovered that some characteristics of autism and ADHD work against each other: autism needs routine and my ADHD needed spontaneity. But other characteristics overlap to create a heightened experience: I used alcohol to calm the anxiety produced by living with autism and, as ADHD causes lower levels of dopamine in the brain, I was driven to activities that boosted it – binge-drinking, risky sex. Understanding this released me from years of self-blame and guilt. In time, I've come to see that my neurodivergence has advantages. I feel emotions intensely but this also includes positive emotions such as happiness and joy. My capacity for emotion and empathy has been a great help in writing character-based fiction. My obsessive nature and need to spend long periods on my own mean I'm suited to immersing myself in the fictional worlds I create. And, while my ADHD helps ignite the initial sparks of creativity, my autism kicks in to make sure I knuckle down and bring these ideas to fruition. But I have also felt profound grief. This is primarily for the past, for all the missed opportunities, all the things I lost or had taken away from me. All the times I was criticised for behaviours that I didn't realise were symptomatic of my autism. I also wonder what my life would have looked like if I had been diagnosed earlier: would I have applied for Cambridge or the job at Channel 4 News? Would I have persisted in writing fiction if I'd known that the rejection would cause me so much hurt? Of course, I should have been able to do these things with accommodations made for my neurodivergence, but the reality is that these allowances didn't exist 30 – or even 10 – years ago. I'm beginning to make adjustments to my life, securing the accommodations I need. I've invested in noise-reducing earplugs, a weighted blanket that regulates my nervous system, and no longer stop myself singing randomly musicalised phrases. I only commit to social occasions I know make me feel good about myself. Likewise, I avoid sensory environments I know will make me uncomfortable and recover from sensory overwhelm by going for long walks in nature. Professionally, I ask for clear, unambiguous communication and I've also switched literary agents; my new representative handles the business side of my career to avoid any conflict. Recently, there have been claims that autism is being 'over-diagnosed'. Given that it took me until the age of 50 to receive a diagnosis, I'd challenge this. I'd also like to challenge some of the stereotypes that prevail – not to mention the prejudice. Now I've written this article, I accept that I'll always be seen as autistic. Some people might use this against me; if I have any disagreements, my point of view could be dismissed as an expression of my autism. But I also know that, at 50, there's probably less time ahead of me than there is behind. And with that knowledge, I embark on a new journey, to finally start living as myself, to embrace my neurodivergence and create a life that works best for me. I'm ready. Matt Cain's latest novel One Love is published by Headline (£9.99). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply. Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Charities welcome free school meals change but warn ‘more is needed'
Charities have welcomed the expansion of free school meals as a 'first step' towards easing child poverty, but urged the Government to axe the two-child benefit cap as economists warned the scope of the change would be limited. Campaigners and school leaders said the change, which will see all pupils in families that claim universal credit in England made eligible for the scheme, will relieve pressure on household budgets. But organisations including the NSPCC, the National Children's Bureau and Action for Children insisted the abolition of the two-child welfare rule was still needed. Meanwhile, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) warned the expansion would 'not see anything like 100,000 children lifted out of poverty next year' and that lifting the cap 'would have a lower cost per child lifted out of poverty.' The cap, which was introduced in 2017, restricts child tax credit and universal credit to two children in most households. Hundreds of thousands more pupils across the country will be able to access means-tested free school meals when the provision is extended from September 2026, the Department for Education (DfE) announced on Thursday. Currently, households in England on universal credit must earn below £7,400 a year (after tax and not including benefits) to qualify for free school meals. But the Government has announced that every pupil whose household is on universal credit will have a new entitlement to free school lunches from the start of the 2026/27 academic year. The move comes after campaigners and education leaders have called for free school meals to be extended to all children whose families are on universal credit to ease pressures on young people living in poverty. Nearly 2.1 million pupils – almost one in four of all pupils (24.6%) – in England were eligible for free school meals in January 2024. The DfE has said more than half a million more children are expected to benefit from a free meal every school day as a result of the expansion, and nearly £500 will be put back into parents' pockets every year. It suggested that the expansion will lift 100,000 children across England completely out of poverty. Chris Sherwood, chief executive of the NSPCC, said the move was a 'welcome step in the right direction' and 'a lifeline for many families who are struggling to survive in this cost-of-living crisis'. But he added: 'By removing the two-child limit, the government could lift over 350,000 children out of poverty, which, if coupled with an ambitious child poverty strategy later in the year, would help tackle the crisis children are facing.' Action for Children chief executive Paul Carberry said the changes would make a 'big difference' but 'by itself, it can't deliver the bold, ambitious reduction in child poverty that the Prime Minister has promised'. Sir Keir Starmer has indicated he is considering scrapping the two-child limit amid the prospect of a backbench rebellion over the policy, but has declined to give further details ahead of the publication of the Government's flagship child poverty strategy in the autumn. Mr Carberry said: 'This must set out a comprehensive and funded plan to fix our inadequate social security system, beginning with the abolition of the cruel two-child limit and benefit cap.' Anna Feuchtwang, chief executive of the National Children's Bureau, said the expansion should be a 'down payment' on further investment in addressing child poverty in the autumn. She said it was 'crucial' that the Government reconsiders its position on the two-child limit for the autumn. Anna Taylor, executive director of The Food Foundation, called it a 'landmark day for children'. She said: 'The expansion of free school meals is supported by the overwhelming majority of people in the UK – regardless of how they vote. 'We all know that feeding our children well, whatever their background is not rocket science, it is about priorities and today the government put children first.' The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said that in the long term, the change would mean free lunches for about 1.7 million additional children, but that in the short run, the announcement would benefit 'considerably fewer pupils'. Christine Farquharson, associate director at the think tank, said: 'Transitional protections introduced in 2018 have substantially increased the number of children receiving free school meals today – so in the short run, today's announcement will both cost considerably less (around £250 million a year) and benefit considerably fewer pupils (the government's estimate is 500,000 children). 'This also means that today's announcement will not see anything like 100,000 children lifted out of poverty next year.' She added: 'There is some evidence too that school meals can have benefits for children's health and attainment. 'But if the government's main interest is to reduce child poverty, there are other measures – such as lifting the two-child limit – that would have a lower cost per child lifted out of poverty.'
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
England name squad for India Test series opener at Headingley
June 5 (Reuters) - England have named a 14-player squad for the first match of the Rothesay Test Series against India, which is set to begin on June 20 at Headingley in Leeds. Ben Stokes will lead the squad as captain and Surrey bowling all-rounder Jamie Overton returns to the Test line-up for the first time since earning his sole cap against New Zealand at Headingley in June 2022. The 31-year-old is still under close medical review after breaking his right little finger during the first One-Day International against the West Indies at Edgbaston last week. Durham seamer Brydon Carse, as well as Warwickshire's Jacob Bethell and Chris Woakes, were recalled after featuring in England's Test tour of New Zealand in December. Surrey's Gus Atkinson was ruled out of selection due to a hamstring injury sustained during the one-off Test against Zimbabwe at Trent Bridge last month. England will play five Test matches against India over the next couple of months, finishing on August 4 at the Kia Oval in London. Ben Stokes, Shoaib Bashir, Jacob Bethell, Harry Brook, Brydon Carse, Sam Cook, Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Jamie Overton, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Jamie Smith, Josh Tongue and Chris Woakes.
