Source: Women are Human
UK — Durham, England. A vicious killer bludgeoned to death his lover following a consensual sexual encounter, and is the sole suspect in the drowning and dismembering of an elderly man. Serving life behind bars, he castrated himself and mutilated his genitalia, and claimed to be a woman whose rights were being violated by prison staff. Recently, a panel of judges made a ruling on his appeal.
In 2001 at age 17, former altar boy Christopher Hunnisett drowned 81-year-old Rev Ronald Glazebrook in the bath tub of a St Leonards-on-Sea flat. He had been lodging with the retired priest for two years, but they were not getting along and the older man wanted him out. After the murder, he asked a friend to help him dismember the body. Rev Glazebrook’s severed head and limbs were discovered along with a saw in a sports bag on a traffic island in Hastings. The torso was found near Eastbourne. A bloody axe was recovered from the flat.
The youth was charged with murder, a crime he denied. He was convicted and handed an indefinite prison term with a minimum of five years and a half. On appeal, the minimum term was doubled to 11 years.
The conviction was vacated in 2010. In retrial, Mr Hunnisett claimed Rev Glazebrook had come into the bathroom while he was bathing and touched his inner thigh, and he punched the older man in response. He said he found Rev Glazebrook dead the next day, and panicked and hid the body. Prosecutor Philip Katz called it a “wholly unlikely story,” but Mr Hunnisett was acquitted.
Four months after release, the 28-year-old had a sexual encounter with grocery store clerk Peter Bick. He then beat the 57-year-old repeatedly in the head with a hammer and strangled him with a shoelace.
At trial, Mr Hunnisett insisted he murdered Mr Bick as part of his mission to rid the world of pedophiles. An investigation found “not a shred of evidence” that Mr Bick had engaged in inappropriate conduct with children.
Mr Hunnisett was convicted of murder in 2012. Branded an “extremely dangerous man,” he was deemed unsuitable for placement in a wing for vulnerable inmates, but at risk of being harmed if held with the general population. He was placed in relative segregation.
In October 2015, he began identifying as a woman named Crystal, and grew out his hair.
“I have cut off my testicles and sliced the shaft of my penis in half,” Mr Hunnisett informed a High Court justice during a hearing on his complaint that he was mistreated by prison staff. He told the High Court that prison staff had shown “lack of respect” by referring to this act as “self-harm surgery.” In addition, “prison staff continued to refer to me as ‘he’ or ‘him’, showing their contempt towards transgender prisoners.” He called his placement in relative segregation “inhumane” and a violation of his rights. The claim was rejected.
Arguing for appeal, Mr Hunnisett recently told three judges that there was new evidence a psychotic illness had caused him to have “delusional ideas” that Mr Bick was a pedophile. The panel found that Mr Hunnisett’s defense of diminished responsibility due to “delusional ideation and its effect on her actions” was central to the 2012 case. His appeal was dismissed on Thursday.
