Following public outrage, a transgender father convicted of abusing his daughter for a pedophile’s gratification may now be transferred to a men’s prison. This decision comes after significant backlash over his initial placement in a women’s correctional facility.
Autumn Tulip Harper, aged 26, received a prison sentence of at least two years and six months after being caught in a global crackdown on a pedophile network.
Earlier this month, Harper was sentenced to four years and nine months, with a parole eligibility after two years and six months, for participating in the sexual abuse of his five-year-old daughter under the directives of an online predator.
The sentencing and Harper’s placement in the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre, a women-only prison, sparked protests from women’s rights organizations.
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan declined to comment on Harper’s situation, who is known in the courts by the pseudonym ‘Hilary Maloney.’ Premier Allan stated it would be “deeply inappropriate” for any government official to influence prisoner placement decisions within Corrections Victoria.
However, by Wednesday, there was a shift in the government’s stance regarding this matter.
Victorian Corrections Minister Enver Erdogan conceded under questioning from Libertarian MP David Limbrick that he had asked Corrections Victoria to review its policies on trans prisoners.
‘I can confirm I have asked Corrections Victoria to update their policies to ensure that the safety and well-being of the wider women’s prison population is a stronger consideration in placements,’ he said.
The new policy would take into account the nature of past offending, and the minister said that could be in place ‘in weeks, not months or years’.
Harper before their transformation
Harper after their transition
Victorian Corrections Minister Enver Erdogan told parliament question time he had asked Corrections Victoria to ‘update their policies’ in the wake of the Harper controversy
‘We know that it is not unusual for many women that enter our custodial facilities to have histories as victims of sexual violence and other forms of violence.
‘I do expect Corrections Victoria to make these decisions very carefully, but as I have said previously, I will not be interfering in that decision-making because Corrections Victoria implement the policies that we do set.’
Liberal MP Bev McArthur then asked Mr Erdogan: ‘Why are you housing biological males convicted of sexually assaulting women and girls at women’s prisons?’.
‘You have an obligation as the Corrections Minister to keep the inmates in prison safe,’ Ms McArthur said.
‘You are not keeping the inmates in women’s prisons safe if they are raped by men in women’s prisons.’
Mr Erdogan said he ‘rejected’ Ms McArthur’s ‘premise’.
‘I have been very clear that we do recognise gender identity, but there is a balance to be made with the placement of prisoners,’ he said
The policy update could spell the end for Harper’s brief stint at Dame Phyllis Frost.
The Victorian government’s new policy came just after Northen Territory Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro declared female prisons should house women only, saying ‘If you’re born a bloke, you’re going to a men’s prison’.
Libertarian MP David Limerick asked questions about Harper during parliament
Harper’s Facebook profile was hacked
‘Here in the Northern Territory there are no blokes in women’s jails and we’re not having that here, not on my watch,’ she said on Wednesday.
Women’s Voices Australia founder Jasmine Sussex welcomed the policy update news.
‘The Women of Phyllis Frost can sleep better at night now,’ Ms Sussex told the Daily Mail.
Harper was snared after Australian Federal Police, acting on a tip from US law enforcement, raided a home Harper shared with his female partner and child in Clayton South, in Melbourne’s south-east, on September 15, 2023.
Investigators discovered Harper subjected their five-year-old daughter to ‘persistent sexual abuse’ between May and June of that year.
Harper sent 77 child abuse files via Discord to their United States-based paedophile master known in court documents as ‘Samuel Booth’.
The details of Harper’s offending, who pleaded guilty in the Melbourne County Court in July 2024 to charges including persistent sexual abuse of a child under 16, are too harrowing to publish.
Detectives discovered Harper had been in a ‘master/slave’ relationship with Booth where he would order them to perform daily tasks and film them.
These included instructions for the sexual abuse of Harper’s daughter.
Liberal MP Bev McArthur told Minister Erdogan he was ‘not keeping the inmates in women’s prisons safe if they are raped by men in women’s prisons’
Women’s Voices Australia founder Jasmine Sussex welcomed the policy update news
Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan hasn’t commented on the Hilary Maloney controversy
Forensic psychiatrist Dr Rajan Darjee provided written testimony in Harper’s trial that the offender ‘identified as a female, living as a female and hormonally female’ and exhibited a common ‘pattern of sexual abuse seen in females’.
‘This pattern of sexual abuse is one which a more dominant male pressurises, manipulates and/or coerces a female who has access to a child… to sexually abuse that child and/or to make that child available to him to sexually abuse,’ Dr Darjee wrote in his report for Harper’s hearing.
The Daily Mail revealed the Victorian Government gave more than $100,000 to a trans prison program which helped Harper serve his maximum four-year and nine-month jail term women’s prison.
