Transgender man in women’s prison: Thug who murdered grandmother as a 16-year-old girl in row over £5 and a cigarette now lives as a transgender man in a women’s prison

A criminal who murdered a grandmother as a teenage girl for £5 and a cigarette is now living as a transgender man in a women-only prison.

Nicolle Earley became one of Scotland’s youngest female murderers in 2008 when, aged 16, she murdered 63-year-old Ann Gray in her home.

Earley, from Methil, Fife, was sentenced to life in prison in 2010, with a minimum of 14 years in prison.

It has now emerged that the 32-year-old is a transgender woman living in Scotland’s HMP Stirling women’s prison, where Earley is being held in the admissions hall, the Daily Record reports.

She brutally murdered her grandmother by knocking her to the ground and repeatedly stamping on her head in Crosshill, Fife.

Nicolle Earley, who murdered a grandmother in a fight over £5 and cigarettes as a teenage girl, now lives as a transgender man in a women-only prison

The 32-year-old is known to be a transgender woman named Kobi living in Scotland’s HMP Stirling women’s prison (pictured), where Earley is being held in the admissions hall

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) published its policy for the management of transgender people in custody in 2023

The Scottish Prison Service (SPS) published its policy on the management of transgender people in custody in 2023.

The document states that transgender people held in women’s prisons who have been convicted of “crimes involving violence against a woman and resulting in physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to a woman,” such as murder, “may be kept separate from other persons in prison until the SPS has been able to assess their risk and vulnerability.”

A Scottish Prison Service spokesman said: “We do not comment on individuals.”

Mrs Gray died from head injuries after being knocked to the ground and repeatedly stamped on.

The grandmother also suffered a broken jaw and cheekbone, as well as a broken bone in her neck.

In 2016, lawyers told Stirling Crown Court that memories of what they called ‘this incident’ were damaging to Earley’s mental health.

The convicted murderer was brought before the court to face his sentence after he admitted throwing a dinner plate at a fellow inmate at Cornton Vale women’s prison, near Stirling, and assaulting her with his fists.

Sheriff William Wood sentenced her to a further six months in prison. He ordered this sentence to be served concurrently with her current sentence, but warned her that this could delay her eventual release.

He said: ‘There will undoubtedly be implications for the Parole Board if they say you are being released.’

But Earley’s attorney Danielle Varela said her release date is currently set for 2025, but that before she attacked fellow inmate Pauline Sleeman, she was “moved forward” for a parole hearing in 2021.

Ms Varela explains: ‘However, she was recently told that treatment would be on hold until her mental health issues were resolved.

‘There has been a deterioration since she has been in custody. She has flashbacks in relation to this incident from 2008.

‘There has been talk of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), but I have been told that no diagnosis has been made at this time.’

Earley became one of Scotland’s youngest female murderers when, aged 16, she murdered 63-year-old Ann Gray in her home in 2008

She added that her client had thrown the “normal sized round plastic plate” and then punched her because her fellow inmate had been verbally abusive towards her.

Meanwhile, prosecutor Adrian Fraser said Earley was caught by a food bank guard knocking an inmate to the floor in the dining room after hearing a commotion.

He pulled her off and the inmate got a ‘red ear, from the blows’. Earley pleaded guilty to assault.

Earley was given an additional 18 months in prison in 2013 after sending letters covered in blood and swastikas from her cell in Cornton Vale, threatening to kill and eat a local lawyer and send his face to a mask factory. She also said Sheriff Robertson ‘could join him’.

Parts of the letters read: ‘Are you afraid that you will be tortured or that your family members will be taken away? That is what will happen.

“Are you a fan of Hannibal? I’ll rip you apart and eat you.

‘If I hadn’t been locked up, I would have taken you in the back of a van and just watched those guys attack you and heard you scream.

“I’ll have your ear cut off and your tongue torn out. You’ll be taken home at night and left on your doorstep.”

She also praised serial killer Charles Manson and called Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik a “legend.”

In 2010, Ms Gray’s family called Earley’s minimum 14-year prison sentence “a joke” and said she should have been behind bars for a minimum of 30 years.

Speaking outside court shortly after Earley’s sentencing, Mrs Gray’s daughter Anne-Marie McLeod told the BBC: ‘Fourteen years, it’s nothing. It’s shocking, it really is.

“I hope she never gets out. She doesn’t deserve it.”

“There is no justice today.”